


to dream a new dream

by Blue_Eyed_Dreamer, sensibleshroom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jango Fett Open Seasons (Comics), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Parental Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 43,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Eyed_Dreamer/pseuds/Blue_Eyed_Dreamer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensibleshroom/pseuds/sensibleshroom
Summary: When Shouta Aizawa has a quirk accident at work, he loses far more than he ever thought he'd have to bear.Jaster Mereel is here to pick up the pieces, but sometimes the pieces aren't enough. Sometimes, a man just needs his daughter back.
Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Original Female Character(s), Aizawa Shouta|Eraserhead/Jaster Mereel, Jango Fett & Jaster Mereel
Comments: 140
Kudos: 193





	1. Chapter 1

Jaster blinked. Once, twice, then he looked at his drink. He was pretty sure it wasn’t anything other than what he had ordered, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t spiked it with a hallucinogen. If he wasn’t hallucinating however, this was something interesting.

He looked from the downed Zabrak, fruitlessly struggling against the bindings of what looked like an absurdly long scarf wrapped around his chest, pinning the zabrak’s arms to his sides and away from the blaster Jaster could see at his belt, to the being holding the other end of the scarf. Dressed in what looked like a black jumpsuit, a rather dishevelled Human stood braced, easily holding their target down with a foot on the Zabrak’s back. 

“Release me! Do it now or I’ll rip your arms off!” The Zabrak snarled, and Jaster studied his face, trying to remember why it looked familiar. He didn’t think he’d met him before.

“Edrik Marth, stay down and come quietly, or I will take great pleasure in breaking all of your limbs.” The Human said, voice quiet but carrying clearly through the cantina nonetheless. “Your bounty only required you to be alive to face justice. There was nothing about all your limbs having to be intact.”

Edrik Marth. Now Jaster remembered where he had seen that face. There had been a notice on the Wanted board at headquarters. A Zabrak that had bombed a school on Mandalore. Rumours had suggested there was a connection to Death Watch. 

Jaster rose, setting his drink aside. While the Human seemed to have everything well in hand, there was nothing wrong with adding in an official presence. 

He barely had time to stand when the Zabrak twisted in such a way that he got a hand on the blaster, and Jaster thought he was going to have to witness another murder. He reached for his own blaster, but he was going to be too slow, when the Human moved.

CRACK!

The Zabrak screamed, and the Human kicked the blaster out of his clearly broken hand. He was completely steady, seemingly unbothered by the violent curses coming out of the Zabrak’s mouth. 

“Last warning, Marth.” Marth snarled again, and bucked. The Human sighed, and brought out a hypo. As soon as it was brought to Marth’s neck, he went limp. Jaster stepped forward before any more moves were made. 

“Before you go, I’m going to have to ask for some ID and a puck.” He said, just as the Human put the hypo away. 

“And you are?” 

“Jaster Mereel, Journeyman Protector.” Jaster stated evenly, making sure his badge was showing clearly. There was a pause, and Jaster thought he might have to bring both of them in, but then the Human nodded, and tossed him an ID chip, followed by an official guild puck. Dark hair swung in the Human’s face, shrouding most of his features, but Jaster met his eyes evenly. They were young, not much more than a teenager, if that. Plugging the chip into his reader, he waited for authentication, and studied the teen.

Shouta Aizawa, the ID read, planet of origin unmarked, and Jaster studied the tired, worn out face of the teen for a moment. He looked like he should be older, like he’d been stuffed into a body too small for his soul. But far be it from Jaster to comment on how the bounty hunter needed to use one of those hypos on himself.

“Here,” he said and offered the puck and ID back. “Thanks for keeping it clean.”

“I wouldn’t call that clean,” Shouta replied and tucked the chip and puck back into his utility belt as he hauled the Zabrak up.

“This is Mandalore space, and there’s not a speck of blood in sight,” Jaster drawled. “That’s clean,  _ Beroya. _ ”

The man hesitated, his brows furrowing like he didn’t recognize the word, and he probably didn’t. Jaster had no idea what the  _ hell _ that accent was, but it wasn’t anywhere he recognized. Basic was  _ definitely _ his second language though, from the way he seemed to pick his words carefully.

“That means bounty hunter, in Mando’a,” he offered, and the teen’s face cleared. A grunt, and then he tilted his head.

“Any flimsiwork you need me to do? Or can I get him on my ship before he wakes up?”

“Take him away, hunter,” Jaster said with a wave of his hand. The teen  _ was _ attractive, and not that much younger than Jaster, either. Some would say he was wet behind the ears, and those people would get knocked on their  _ shebs _ for the slight.

With a grunt, the hunter hauled the Zabrak up and over his shoulder in a  _ tremendous _ feat of strength, and a traitorous, hormonal part of Jaster’s brain idly wondered if he could lift him in his armor. The answer was promptly answered when, without even a hint of strain, the offworld hunter turned and sauntered to the door like he was a sack of particularly inked flour.

Well, then. That was someone to keep his eye on. Jaster hoped he’d come back.

* * *

_ “Yumemu Mahi?” The kind, plump woman was knelt in front of her, caring overflowing in her over sympathetic eyes, and Yumu couldn’t bring herself to look at her. _

_ “Yumu,” she mumbled, because that was what Dad called her, was always what Dad had called her, and even if she didn’t get his surname, she had that. Even if she wasn’t an Aizawa, she was  _ **_still_ ** _ his Yumu. _

_ “Yumu,” the woman said warmly, like anyone had any business being warm. “Are you ready to go?” _

_ Yumu’s black button eyes slid over the clean apartment. The pictures on the walls, the books on the shelves, the lesson plans still on the coffee table, waiting for a man that was never going to be coming home. The abandoned coffee maker on the counter, his second love, and the scrapes on the hardwood floor from the chairs they had never put the little caps on. Her fingers tightened around her backpack straps, and she shook her head no desperately. _

_ “We’re already late, hun. The home is waiting, and we have appointments set up for a new family for you,” the woman continued, which was the exact wrong thing to say, and tears pricked at Yumu’s eyes. _

_ “Can’t I stay? Hizashi is going to be back from America---” _

_ “Hizashi doesn’t have the right license for this, hun. Come on. We’ve got to go,” the woman crooned, and she wanted to hit her. Too kind. Too sad. Treating her like a child, but what child lived through this? This was the only home she’d ever known. You didn’t come out of this a  _ **_child._ **

_ “If I leave, how will he find me?” She asked, a little too desperately, and the woman gave her a patented comfort smile. _

_ “He’s not coming back from that, hun.” A pair of black gloves were extended to her by a hand wrapped in fabric, and tears threatened to bubble up and spill over. _

_ Dad had never made her wear gloves. _

_ Dad would have kicked her out, but here she was, in his living room, on his worn rug, smiling at  _ **_his_ ** _ daughter she was going to hand off for someone else to raise like they had a  _ **_right,_ ** _ and… _

_ And Yumu took the gloves. _

_ And Yumu said nothing. _

* * *

“When did you last sleep?” A glass of water was put in front of him, and Jaster dragged his eyes away from the records he was studying to glare at the interloper. Said interloper merely glared back until Jaster sighed, put the holopad aside, and took the water. 

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He retorted, because the dark circles under Shouta’s eyes were definitely darker than the last time he’d seen him. Shouta merely smiled at him, that wide creepy grin that Jaster had seen cow more than a few criminals into silence. Jaster raised an eyebrow back, not willing to be the same.

He was able to hold it for maybe thirty seconds before he caved.

“I can’t sleep Shouta. Not now. I just-” Jaster didn’t know how to explain it, this drive to find a code for his people to follow, to do something to fill his life now that his purpose as a Journeyman Protector was gone. He’d lost almost everything, but this, making a new Codex for Mandalorians, finding a way for his people to thrive in this day and age without destroying each other, maybe that could be his legacy. Maybe that could be his purpose. 

“If you want your Codex to actually be coherent, you need to be thinking clearly, and that requires you to sleep on a regular basis. It’s only logical.” Shouta was still looking at him like he was contemplating sedating him like he did his bounties. Jaster considered throwing his water in his face to drive him off, and then realized that he really did need sleep if he was thinking like that. 

Shouta had no obligation to look out for him, but he had anyway. The semi-frequent comm calls had kept Jaster together after he was exiled, and the man had even pointed Jaster in the direction of a few of the more obscure records he needed. How Shouta knew of their existence was a mystery, but Jaster had seen the man come up with too many of the most unlikely contacts and leads before to doubt him now.

Shouta didn’t have to help him. It wasn’t like Jaster was really helping him out, now that he couldn’t use his connections to law enforcement like he had before, but still, here Shouta was. Jaster owed it to him to concede, even if sleep was hard to achieve.

“Fine.” Jaster sighed, downed the last of the water, and turned the holopad off. Shouta’s face softened back to its neutral cast, and Jaster knew that meant he was relieved. Jaster wasn’t sure whether to smile or scoff at the concern, but did neither. For all that Shouta was a mother hen, he didn’t like being called on it.

“Come. It’ll still be there when you wake up.” Shouta said, extending a hand to him. Jaster took it, and stood, weaving a bit before finding his balance. Shouta didn’t let go.

* * *

_ They were screaming again. The closet was nice. Cool. Quieter than the room. Dark, though if they caught sight of glowing eyes, that might make them more mad. _

_ “ _ **_You’re_ ** _ the one that wanted to bring in that  _ **_demon!_ ** _ I want her  _ **_out!_ ** _ ” _

_ “She has a difficult quirk! We need those checks! If you just got a  _ **_job_ ** _ \---” _

_ Yumu sunk down in on herself, shut her eyes tight, and shoved it out of sight, out of mind. _

**_“I want her out!”_ **

**_“I don’t care!”_ **

_ Yumu wanted out, too. They weren’t special. _


	2. Chapter 2

Jaster had never had any strong opinions regarding tookas before, but he did now. It was only his armour that saved him from getting mauled by the Sith-damned beast. 

He’d only tried to pet the cursed thing. Shouta had shown up with his ship and a ginger tooka that had apparently adopted him at his last job, and Jaster had only wanted to express his appreciation that his friend wasn’t all alone.

He was taking back any and all positive feelings regarding the tooka. Even if the incident had allowed Jaster to hear Shouta laugh for the first time. It wasn’t a manly chuckle, or a belly-aching laugh like one might hear at the cantina. No, Shouta cackled at him, nearly doubled over with mirth, not helping Jaster at all with prying the beast off his vambrace.

It shouldn’t be as endearing as it was. It shouldn’t be making Jaster want to smile. 

But it did.

“A little help?” He asked over the snarling hisses of the tooka. He held his captive arm as far away from himself as possible. Shouta let out one last wheeze, and came over. As soon as Shouta touched the beast, the tooka went limp as a noodle, then sprang off Jaster to perch on Shouta’s shoulder, rubbing its cheek with Shouta’s, purring up a storm.

Jaster couldn’t help it. He laughed. Well, even if the tooka didn’t like him, it at least adored Shouta. That was good. Shouta needed good things in his life that weren’t just bounty hunting.

“Sorry,” Shouta said, not sounding sorry at all. “Nuts is a little particular.” Jaster crossed his arms and just looked at him. Shouta grinned and cackled again.

“I couldn’t tell.” Jaster drawled. “Nuts?”

“Short for Sir Fluffernutters the Third.” Shouta said, somehow with a straight face. Jaster goggled at him for a moment, and then lost it. He couldn’t breathe, he was laughing so hard. That was what he named the tooka? 

Jaster tried to catch his breath, but everytime he seemed to be recovering, he caught sight of the tooka, perched proudly on his Human’s shoulder, and just lost it again. 

When he was finally able to breathe properly, he had a thought.

“So, if that’s what you name your pets, what the hell is your ship called? Do I want to know?” He asked jokingly.

He regretted it immediately. Shouta’s grin dropped, withering away in an instant. It was happening more and more lately, the way his eyes had the life sucked out of them, got a little distant.

It concerned Jaster, worried him more than a bit. 

“ Musō-ka,” he replied, and it took Jaster a moment to put together the dots. Shouta’s second language was Basic. He’d clocked it the moment he met him. He had a strange accent, from somewhere Jaster had never encountered, matched with a name that pulled up no home planet to mention of. Jaster threw around Mando’a casually, but Shouta had never once made mention of his native language.

This had to be it. It was as beautiful as his name. Jaster almost hated that it seemed to be steeped in tragedy.

Shouta cleared his throat and set the tooka down as he turned aside.

“It means The Dreamer,” he said hoarsely, a rare show of vulnerability, and that was that.

Jaster didn’t bring it up again. Shouta was such a puzzling mix of fragile vulnerability and ironclad strength, and Jaster… Well. He was a weak man.

It wasn’t worth the risk of seeing him shatter.

* * *

_ The impact sent her knees screaming with stinging pain, and Yumu stared blankly at the blood smeared on the concrete. A hand lifted, and she stared at the grit stuck in the raw flesh of her palms. Why did they take her gloves? Was it to prove a point? _

**_“Illogical,”_ ** _ a traitorous voice she hadn’t forgotten whispered in the back of her mind, and she swallowed hard, her hair limply around her shoulders to shield her face. _

_ “You really  _ **_are_ ** _ a dreamer, Mahi,” the boy taunted. “He’s  _ **_dead._ ** _ Only a creepy kid like you would want him to come back.” _

_ “He’s not dead,” she whispered, because she could take the taunts. The complaints about Morpheus Trap. The jibes. But not him. Never him. She was never going to tell the girl that shared her bento anything again. _

_ “Yes, he is! He probably  _ **_wanted_ ** _ to die, stuck with a freak like you!” _

_ He  _ **_chose_ ** _ her. He wasn’t  _ **_stuck._ ** _ He  _ **_loved her,_ ** _ and gods only knew she had precious little of that nowadays. _

_ “He’s not dead!” She cried, because he wasn’t. Just far, far away. Her dad didn’t  _ **_die._ **

_ “Yes, he is! You’re just  _ **_stupid!_ ** _ ” _

**_“Shut up!”_ **

_ They didn’t. They never did. _

* * *

Jaster twitched and hissed as Shouta pressed the bandage to his shoulder without a shred of sympathy.

“You could be gentler,” he hissed, and Shouta hummed noncommittally behind him.

“What if your  _ Haat Mando’ade _ knew their  _ Mand’alor _ was such a baby?” Shouta shot back as he pressed down the bacta patch with a near sense of viciousness. Jaster hoped the flinch covered his shiver at Shouta speaking  _ Mando’a _ so casually. 

“You didn’t need to haul me out,” Jaster groused, and Shouta peeled open a second bacta patch.

“What, you were going to drag yourself out?” Shouta challenged as he damn near slapped the patch on the blaster burn along his back. “Why did you go out without your armor?”

“Why were you there?” Jaster retorted, and Shouta hissed between his teeth.

“Giving up my bounty on the assassin that shot you to save you, apparently,” he drawled, and Jaster felt a stab of guilt. The Dreamer was as clean and neat as ever. Nuts was seated in the co-pilot's chair, staring at Jaster in judgement. Not a shred of personality, nor warmth, beyond the jacket thrown haphazardly over the back of the pilot’s chair.

“If you got your skinny ass into some actual armor and swore the  _ Resol’nare--- _ ”

“Jaster.” Shouta’s tone was warning. They had been going back and forth on this for a year, ever since Jaster found him beat up and bloody on his ship, dripping all over the console. Shouta needed _backup._ A _family._ Jaster could take care of him. He _could._ But Shouta was having none of it. No armor, too restrictive. No swearing to the Codex, oaths weren’t his thing. The man was damn near the perfect Mandalorian. Strong. Competent. Loyal. Kind. He had _mandokarla_ to spare, and he was still digging in his heels. Every last _Haat Mando’ad_ that had met him save Montross, who didn’t like anyone, swore up and down that Jaster needed to hurry up and make him the _Mand’alor’s_ _riduur._ They would probably stage a mutiny if he married someone else at this rate.

He should probably be grateful no one else was trying to stake a claim for themselves.

And still Shouta dug in his heels. Not that Jaster had ever breathed a word of wanting him, of course. It was a low ache in his belly, tugged every time he saw him again, watching the way he ran himself to the ground like he had somewhere to go. Jaster hated it, but every time Shouta came back, like a wayward tooka that remembered where the food was. They’d saved each other’s lives countless times, never to the point of distraction from his duties, but enough that it was a constant low buzz in the back of his brain. It had been four years, and still Shouta was here. Jaster still didn’t know what to do with him.

“What are you chasing, that you can’t come home with me?” He breathed out, and there was a pause behind him. For a moment, Jaster felt a rare fear that he had pushed too hard, too fast. His breath caught in his chest, impossible and choking, reminding him of a pissed but competent teen in a cantina, a Zabrak under his foot, and then…

A warm forehead pressed to his bare back, hot breath skittering across his skin and sending bugs crawling up his spine. A whisper of a touch of coarse, ill-kempt black strands, and Shouta inhaled the scent of bacta and sweat.

“ Painappuru,” Shouta breathed out, and then huffed out a laugh that set his skin on fire. “That was the bacta smell. Painappuru .”

“Shouta,” Jaster said softly, longing to turn around, to force him to face him, but that was too much. Too damn much for Shouta, and he knew it. Another shaking breath, another press of his forehead, because everything else was too much.

“Watashi no chīsana yūrei ,” Shouta murmured, and then there was a hitch of his breath, like he was fighting back a sob. “Just ghosts.”

Jaster was silent, letting Shouta just breathe in his scent, ground himself against his warm skin, and then he asked the question he had always feared the answer to.

“Who are you mourning?” He asked, and Shouta pressed just a little harder, his hands hovering over Jaster’s sides.

“What I could have had with her,” he answered in a rasp, and Jaster’s heart sunk.

Oh.

Oh, of course. Of course.

Mandalorians, it was said, loved for life. Jaster wasn’t sure of how true that was, didn’t care to think about it before now, but if there was anyone with the soul of a Mando, it was Shouta.

And if there was anyone fool enough to fall for him, it was Jaster.

Of course.

* * *

_ The lack of shock stung more than the hit did. Her foster mother stood there, looking more surprised than Yumu did that she had struck her, and a flicker of fear passed over her face as her eyes darted to wrapped and safe hands. Yumu didn’t react. She just stared at the floor, and that emboldened the woman. _

_ “That hurt me more than it hurt you.” _

_ Well. That was more true than anything. Yumu wasn’t hurt. She barely felt it. No, something new was overtaking her. Something fiery, something cold, something steaming with chill, and she set her jaw as she stared at the floor with blank, painfully blank eyes. _

_ No more. _

_ No more of this. _

_ She was going home. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Painappuru: pineapple 
> 
> Watashi no chīsana yūrei: my little ghost


	3. Chapter 3

“Shouta!” Jaster called, and he had never felt as nervous seeing his friend as he did now. But this was important. It wasn’t just Shouta showing up to exchange info, or to check up on each other. No, Jaster wanted the two most important people in his life to meet, and he wanted it to go well.

He needed it to go well. If it didn’t, if Jango didn’t take to Shouta, or Shouta didn’t like kids, or didn’t like Jaster with a kid, well... Then it was for the better that they hadn’t started anything.

But he really wanted this to work.

Jango was quiet by his side, almost glaring at Shouta’s approaching form. Jaster didn’t blame him. The kid’s life had been full of upheaval, and new people weren’t always a welcome part of life for him. Jaster just made sure his posture was as relaxed as he could make it. He had told Jango about Shouta, and Jango had seemed interested in his bounty hunter friend who wasn’t a Mandalorian, but that was different from liking him in real life.

“Jaster.” As always, Shouta looked like he needed to sleep for a week, and then be on light duty for a month. The tooka had thankfully remained behind, likely napping in the copilot chair of The Dreamer. Still, he didn’t look any worse than usual, so he was probably uninjured. They clasped arms in greeting, and then Shouta extended an arm to Jango.

“Hello, Jango. It’s good to finally meet you.” To Jaster’s surprise, Shouta was smiling at his son, not a creepy grin for intimidation, not a bland one he gave to clients, but a small genuine smile. 

Jango studied the hand carefully, and then clasped his arm, smiling back carefully. They let go after a moment, and there was a strange tension in the air.

“Dad talks about you a lot.” Jango said, and Shouta nodded.

“He talks about you a lot, too,” he replied, and there was something going between the two of them that Jaster wasn’t catching, but a moment later, both of them seemed to relax, so Jaster let it go. 

“Thank you for keeping him in one piece.” Shouta drawled, smile turning into a smirk as he looked Jaster up and down. Jaster had to fight down the blush that threatened to rise, and instead focused on the dig.

“Oi, I’m not that bad! It’s you I have to worry about staying in one piece!” Jaster retorted, and Jango giggled, looking between them. Shouta merely hummed in response, and there was no way for Jaster to end this with his dignity intact. The man had too much blackmail on him, nevermind that Jaster had nearly as many stories to spill.

“Did you really take down eight Devaronians by yourself?” Jango asked, eyes lighting up. Shouta blinked, looked at Jaster with an incredulous look, and Jaster just grinned in response. If Shouta didn’t want to be bragged about, he shouldn’t keep doing incredible things. Granted, that incident had nearly given Jaster a heart attack when he had heard about it. Alone, without backup, and he’d still come out of it alive and with all of his targets intact.

It still frustrated him that Shouta refused to wear armour, but he couldn’t say that Shouta wasn’t a more than capable fighter without it. Jaster just worried.

A lot.

“I did.” Shouta said, now ignoring Jaster in favour of directing all of his attention to Jango. “But, as they say, the bigger they are-”

“The harder they fall,” Jango finished solemnly. Shouta grinned, a toothy thing that took years off his face, and Jaster felt his heart skip a beat.

“Exactly. And they all thought that since I was smaller than them, that I would be an easy target. But that’s what made them easy to fight. Being underestimated can give you an advantage.” Shouta said, and there was something in his voice that drew Jaster’s attention back. Shouta was focused on Jango, and as he narrated the fight, he explained why he did things, specifically drawing attention to using a smaller stature to one’s advantage, keeping Jango engaged and asking questions and---

Shouta was teaching Jango. Just through telling a story of a fight, something that was guaranteed to keep a child’s attention, he was imparting a lesson that Jango could use in the future. 

Shouta hadn’t even known Jango for five minutes and he was already trying to give him knowledge to use in the future, something to help him stay alive and Jaster---

He hadn’t known he could fall any further in love with this man. Apparently he could. It hurt, but in a way that he wouldn’t give up, because even if Shouta never returned his feelings, even if Jaster was doomed to love someone who would never be his  _ riduur _ , he would not give this up. 

He had his purpose as  _ Mand’alor. _ He had a son. And he had his love in Shouta, even if it wasn’t returned. 

His life couldn’t get much better.

So he smiled, and listened, and thanked the  _ ka’ra  _ for giving him this life. 

* * *

_ “Here you go.” The file slapped on the cafe table, and Yumu reached out to gingerly take it, turn it over in her hands. The man in the brown suit frowned down at her as her fingers crinkled the hard cardstock, and then, surprisingly, he slipped into the seat next to her. _

_ “You want a cocoa?” He asked, and her eyes darted up to him before she mutely drew the file back to her chest. _

_ “No, thank you,” she said. _

_ “That’s too bad; I already ordered you one. It’s cold out there,” he replied and adjusted his glasses. _

_ “I’m not going to owe you anything else,” she said, and he frowned down at her. _

_ “It’s not you that owes me anything, kid. You just insisted on paying.” _

_ Yumu’s eyes flicked down to the folder. _

_ “I know better,” she said, with bravado she didn’t feel, and he sighed, like she was some kind of a problem. _

_ “I knew him, you know,” he said casually, and she froze. “What, you think I didn’t look into a nine year old asking for a file on a recently released convict? Too damn short of a sentence, if you ask me, but if they’re not really dead…” _

_ “Stop,” she said before she could stop herself, and he snorted. _

_ “You’re not that fragile, little dreamer,” he cajoled as the waitress delivered a cocoa. They probably looked like a grandfather meeting his granddaughter. The comparison made her gut twist. There was a pause, and then the waitress walked away, and he leaned over the table, elbows set up in a blatant lack of manners. “Look, kid. I don’t know  _ **_how_ ** _ you got that money, but I’ve been hearing some things, and he wouldn’t have wanted this for you. Damn pro had a heart too big for that skinny ass chest of his. Never mentioned a kid, but if you’re going this far, I know he loved you. Don’t do this. Move on.” _

_ Yumu didn’t tell him there was nothing to move on to. Just bumps and bruises and skinned knees and cruel kids. She didn’t tell him that she  _ **_knew_ ** _ he was just as miserable as she was, knew he was secretly hoping one day he’d turn around and she’d be there, as stubborn as she ever was, demanding he be her home again. She didn’t tell him that she knew he was hurting, knew that she needed him, and he needed her. _

_ She didn’t tell him any of that. She just put the file down on the table and flipped it open to read the bold words printed at the top. _

**_Quirk: Reality Displacement. Assessment: red level threat. Complete analysis below._ **

_ And right below it, printed nice and tidy, was an address. _

_ The man in the brown suit sighed and rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses. _

_ “Just at least finish the cocoa. Please.” _

_ She didn’t finish the cocoa. She hadn’t enjoyed it in years. _


	4. Chapter 4

It was criminally easy. Yumu had learned a thing or two in the past three years about learned helplessness. The woman had only been charged with kidnapping, since they weren’t  _ technically _ dead, and had gotten off easy. Three years in prison, with rich parents to throw money at the problem, and now she was a reformed woman.

Yumu could blame her for the hell her life had been for the past three years. She could. But there was no sense in blame, in right or wrong. There was only desperation, and a cold sense of  _ no more. _ Everyone said she would eventually get over it, but she hadn’t, and she was okay with that, because she had a plan. It had taken a year to execute while she memorized the ins and outs of Giran’s analysis, memorized the woman’s habits, her weaknesses, stalked her with predatory intent. There had been a near miss when she almost got sent to another city, but she’d managed to plead her way into a group home so she could finish out the school year.

It was now or never. She had a month left before school let out and she got shuffled off to a new home, and she didn’t know where she’d be going. It was already bad enough  _ in _ the home. It was definitely one of the worse ones. There had been ones where no one cared about Morpheus Trap, but this wasn’t one of them. The social worker, if she could be called that, didn’t quite care what happened so long as homework got done and everyone stayed up on their chores, and the other night Yumu had gotten a black eye and a broken nose. There had been no trip to the ER.

She was tired.

She wanted home. And there was only one home she remembered, one home that  _ meant _ something, and that was with Dad. The man who had been so close to making her an Aizawa, and she still carried the name close in her heart, in the lonely nights. It didn’t matter where she went, how dangerous it was, how unknown everything was. She was going to go back to her dad, right where she belonged, and she was going to do it with ruthless precision.

It was mid evening. Yumu had picked this area specifically for the amount of hero patrols. It was a safe area. Someone would find her and keep her safe while the trap worked its way off. Maybe even call an ambulance. Yumu would leave a note with her, do everything in view of the security camera she had cased across the street. They would see it was all her choice.

It wasn’t about revenge. She just wanted to be back with her dad, and if he couldn’t come home, she would make a new one with him.

The woman was out for her evening jog, and Yumu took a deep, summoned her tears, and ran full pelt for her.

It was a shock. Yumu’s gloved fingers grasped for her jacket, and she turned tear-filled black eyes on the woman as she gasped for air and scrabbled at her clothes.

“Whoa, whoa, kid, what?” The woman gasped, and Yumu burst into further waterworks, grabbed her, dragged her for the alley as she sobbed and sobbed.

“Pl...please, they’re chasing me from school,” she gasped, unintelligible sobs ripping out of her throat, and the woman immediately put herself between the entrance of the alley.

“Bullies?” She asked, and Yumu almost felt a pang of sympathy. She must have been bullied, too. It fit her profile, according to Giran’s records.

“Y...yes,” she sobbed, clutching even as she slipped her own gloves off. “I’m sorry, can you just…”

Another heart wrenching sob worked up and out of her throat, and she peered around the corner of the alley. Clear. No one was in the street. Good.

It just took a touch. Her fingers slipped up the hem of the jacket and closed around her wrist, and the woman went stockstill before she dropped like a stone.

That easy. Yumu tried not to feel like a villain, tried not to think about her capabilities. With any luck, that wouldn’t matter anymore. The woman stared up at her, mouth open as she choked on her words, and Yumu wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Deep breath. In, out. Gather yourself. This is for Dad.  _ This is for Dad. _

“Three years ago, you got into an altercation with an underground pro, known as the callsign Eraserhead,” she said calmly, like her cheeks weren’t wet with tears. Taking a deep breath, she dropped into a crouch next to her and reached for her gloves. The woman let out a muffled cough, gasped for air even as her chest heaved, and Yumu found it… entirely unpleasurable.

She was scared. The sixth sense in the back of Yumu’s head told her there was a demon sitting on her chest. She couldn’t explain how she knew, but she knew, just as sure as she knew she was breathing.

The woman’s glove was peeled off and gingerly tucked into her pocket, and Yumu pulled her own glove back on.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said quietly as she worked out the joints in her fingers. “You can stop panicking. I know it’s scary, but it’s not real.”

She reached into the pocket of her hoodie and slid a folded piece of paper into the woman’s pocket before a picture was withdrawn from her pocket. A gruff man with dark hair pulled into a bun was behind a pink and white birthday cake, burning merrily with seven candles next to a grinning child, bangs just a tad too long and eyes wide with glee. There was the slightest hint of a smile hovering around his face, a telltale slack in his muscles that said he was really, genuinely happy. Yumu waved it in her face just to jog her memory.

“I know you can send people to people,” she said. “You’ve done it before. You probably never heard he had a daughter. But it’s me, I’m here, and I’m going back to my dad now. There’s a hero patrol scheduled in two minutes, and they’ll pick you up. The quirk lasts thirty minutes, and everything is being recorded, so you won’t get in trouble. So, you’re going to focus on where you sent him, and you’re going to bring me back to my dad. Try to get the temporal warping to a minimum, if you don’t mind. I know you have to sacrifice something, but…”

Yumu trailed off as the woman stared in horror at her, and Yumu shook herself, hardening her heart.

“I hope you’re ready,” she murmured, turned the woman’s hand over, and wrapped her fingers around her wrist.

It felt like something was being ripped apart. It was overwhelming, burning for milliseconds, all consuming as the essence of Yumemu Aizawa was ripped to shreds and pieced back together in a galaxy far, far away. To the world around her, she disappeared in a whisper.

To Yumu, she disappeared in a cry.

* * *

It had been ten long, tortuous years. Shouta had never held much hope. Just… wistful thinking. Sometimes, it was the only thing that kept him sane, the wistful thinking. He’d been on a routine patrol, responded to a domestic, and one blink, and he’d been ripped away from the world he knew and catapulted into his teenage body, ten years younger, by his count, unbearably young and soft, stranded in a galaxy that explored the stars and spoke a language he’d never known.

He had to learn everything again. Reading, writing, speaking. And then he’d picked up bounty hunting. It worked. It did well. It was a little like the career he’d lost. There had been a few mistakes here and there. Activating Erasure in the middle of a fight, earning him the nickname the Red Devil, though no one remembered where it came from.

And then came Jaster Mereel. Journeyman Protector turned criminal turned king of his people. Brilliant, brilliant Jaster Mereel who tried so very hard and still… Still didn’t fill in the hole of Shouta’s loss. The memory of almost telling Hizashi he loved him. Nemuri’s bright smiles and louder laughter. Oboro, who he still missed like he would miss a missing limb. Nezu, sometimes, when he was feeling particularly melancholy.

And Yumu.

His daughter. He was filing the adoption paperwork next week. The girl he had  _ promised _ he’d come home to, abandoned to a world that was never going to accept her and her villainous quirk. The child he’d found shivering and sick on the side of the road, kicked out at four years old to wait in the rain as punishment for a quirk accident. Yumu, who laughed and smiled and snuggled up to him even when she was seven and much too big for those sorts of things. Yumemu, whose name meant to dream of flying away, the girl he had promised everything and delivered nothing. The girl he had failed in a single blink.

A piece of his heart had been ripped out, and he’d kept simple, gentle Jaster who he’d held in the hole at an arm's length, because Jaster meant an  _ oath, _ when Shouta had already failed so spectacularly. Jaster meant promises for a future, when Shouta had already ruined his own because he wanted to be a hero. Because he  _ had _ been a hero, or Yumu would have never happened in the first place. He’d doomed her to the same shit foster system he’d crawled his way out of, kicking and screaming, that would torment her day in and out, doomed her to no support system, doomed her to hell, because he hadn’t filled out the damned paperwork and set up things in the event of his death.

And then Jaster had rolled up with Jango, and it had been another punch in the gut, because he  _ couldn’t _ have that. He couldn’t. He couldn’t take losing another one. And now Jango was fourteen, big and bold and almost old enough to have been one of Shouta’s students, and he was. Here. Without his daughter, a daughter he had never even shared with Jaster. A ship he’d named after her, and a cat… tooka… that laid on his chest so he could murmur to him in Japanese when it got too lonely to bear.

Jango was a leader now, and watching Jaster raise him with such love and care  _ hurt. _ Because it was everything Shouta had lost, and he had to bite back the pain and bear it, because even if he wouldn’t be with Jaster, who longed so sweetly, he would be there for him.

Maybe Shouta was just a masochist. Because he could be moving on with his life, right here, right now, and instead he was sitting in his ship, plotting the next hyperspace jump, with a cat lounging on a seat that should have someone else in it. She would be seventeen now. And Shouta had missed all of it. The UA entrance exam paper, the first day of school pictures, her first crush that left her broken hearted, her learning how to tie her tie, work a capture scarf, pick up a hobby, the shopping trips he would have pretended to despise, the  _ possibilities _ he had missed out on.

She should be in the seat next to him. He should be with Jaster, not filling out hyperspace calculations on his own, with Nuts lazing about like the little asshole he was. He should be with  _ her, _ in their home, still teaching at UA, still working as a pro, still molding the next generation of heroes, still seeing his daughter grow into her own skin. He should be…

Anywhere but here.

He was spiraling again.

He just wanted to hear Japanese again.

She hadn’t lost all her teeth yet.

He was sinking into his gloom, and the nav computer was still running the calculations. With a sigh, he leaned over and picked the tooka up, dropped him into his lap, and stroked down his silky back.

“Maybe I should comm Varrik for another job,” he said into the silence of the ship, and Nuts rumbled to life with a throaty purr.

He wasn’t even done with the one he was on.

Nuts stiffened in his lap without warning, and then sprang to his feet, digging his pointy feet into his legs.

“What?” Shouta drawled to the tooka, and Nuts hopped down with a confused yowl.

“... Dad?”

A tiny, small voice, speaking in a language Shouta hadn’t heard in ten years from anyone but himself. Shouta froze up, his mind blue screening, and the first thing he thought was that he had finally lost it.

“... Dad, is that you?” The quiet, wobbling voice asked from behind him, and Nuts meowed in further confusion before padding off towards the source of the noise. Slowly, Shouta turned around his seat, and…

Her nose was broken. Her eye was black. Her blue-black hair was greasy, pulled back in a messy, juvenile braid. She was in a hoodie two sizes too big and leggings, looking lost and  _ vulnerable _ and  _ questioning, _ and she was  _ too fucking skinny. _

Shouta stared. Blinked. Stared, and she took a tentative step forward.

“... Did it work?” She asked hoarsely, and in an instant Shouta pieced together the puzzle.

Brave, brave, stupid, _ desperate _ girl.

“Problem child,” he croaked, and lurched to his feet, stumbling across the cockpit towards her, all grace gone from his limbs as his heart hammered in his chest in an effort to catch up with the thoughts moving too fast to catch, and he lashed out, grabbing his little girl and pulling her to his chest in a crushing embrace.

A sob wracked a body that was too warm to not be real, and Shouta stared blankly over her head as he held her so, so tightly, tight enough to bruise, slowly sinking to his knees and bringing her with her as her gloved fingers wrapped around his jumpsuit, clinging to him like she wasn’t sure that he was real.

“Dad,” she rasped, and in an instant, they were in an gangly puddle on the floor, her sobbing into his chest as his brain spun and spun about what she had just  _ done, _ what was she  _ thinking, _ who  _ hurt her, _ her  _ nose was broken, _ she was  _ skinny, _ she needed to  _ wash her hair, _ and he only had terrible rations on board.

It took him a moment for him to process that she was here, in his arms, sobbing into his chest, and he hit the wall, hauling her up with a desperation born out of a father that had failed, and she just clung and sobbed as he rocked her back and forth.

“It’s okay,” he gasped as soon as he figured out the words, the Japanese pouring off his lips, foreign after disuse, but exactly what she needed to hear. “It’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay. I’m here. I got you. I got you. I’m here.”

She was here. His stupid, brave daughter was here.

He didn’t even care when he started sobbing, too.


	5. Chapter 5

Shouta woke up slowly, with a hazy awareness of a heavy weight on his chest and a fuzzy warmth curled up against his side. He did it slowly, in a way he hadn’t in a long time.

Her hair was greasy. She needed a good wash and a real water shower. She was in a hoodie and leggings, and his brain was already kicking into father mode, thinking of the good boots she’d need, solid spacer clothes that would stay clean and neat in the wear and tear of space. Education modules. He needed to teach her Basic, Aurebesh, Huttese, Bocce, Shyriiwook, Shyriiwook was always a good language to know. How to pilot a ship, use a capture scarf, because she had one shoved in her backpack, just in case he lost his, and  _ stars, _ he loved her, loved that she had kept his backup over all these years.

It had only been three years for her. He had been here a  _ decade, _ and for her it had been only three years. Three years in, Jaster was dragging him kicking and screaming out of a suicidal job for the fifteenth time and was making him stop and  _ think. _ Shouta was quietly glad she’d come after he adjusted, after he had things to  _ teach her. _ Quietly glad she’d come when he had his shit together, when he wasn’t half mad with grief and fraying at the seams.

Yumu twitched in her sleep and he smoothed back her ratty hair, breathed in the realization that she was  _ here, _ with him, in his arms. His baby was here, and his heart was breaking a little, because she must have been desperate if she was willing to do what he thought she did.

“Dad?” She mumbled hazily, a small hand curling in his jumpsuit, and Shouta let out a low breath.

“I’d say you’re grounded, but I’ll let you following me into an alternate universe where I’m a space bounty hunter slide just this once,” he said, and she huffed out a laugh, gloved fingers curling in his jumpsuit. Speaking Japanese felt  _ so good. _ It was a language he’d almost forgotten, confined to quiet moments on his ship and rare moments of vulnerability with Jaster. And now he had her to share it with.

“You were taking too long,” she mumbled, and he relaxed, because of course she’d say that.

“It’s been ten years for me. I got thrown into my teen body,” he said, and she snorted.

“Way too long,” she added. “You must have been miserable.”

“It had its moments,” he replied, and she relaxed against him, a boneless goop on his chest.

“Is it kinder here?” She asked, softly, so soft and vulnerable, and Shouta’s heart broke a little, because he’d abandoned her.

“It’s harder,” he answered honestly, thought back to Jaster’s kind eyes, wondered how he’d react if he knew the truth. Jango would probably lose his mind, but… Jedi were normal here. Force users. So many species and races, that probably wouldn’t give two shits one way or another about Yumu’s quirk, what she could do, the kind of terror she could ignite in them. The  _ Haat Mando’ade _ would bully her into using it on them. Competitively. “But… It’s kinder. Yeah.”

“Did you find anyone that made you happy?” She asked softly, curled in more against his side, and he let out a sigh.

“Yeah. I did. But he wasn’t…” Enough. Maybe he’d be enough now, but Shouta just got Yumu back, had no idea how to explain any of this, and he kind of wanted to be selfish and keep her to himself. Just for a little while. To make up for it. Teach her Basic, get her reading and writing, give her some skills. Just for awhile, he wanted it to just be her and him, because he wasn’t ready to explain where he was from, what it was like, how he got here, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Yumu lifted up her head, showing off her bandaged nose he’d carefully reset, plastered small bandages soaked in bacta. It was looking better. He had some water reserves on his ship, mainly because he never got used to a sonic, only used it when he had to. The black eye was looking a lot better, but he needed to put more bacta on it.

There was a warning beep that they were ten minutes away from coming out of hyperspace, and he forced himself to move, gathering her up and pushing her into sitting up. There was a second bed, the bunk above him in his small ship, but he wasn’t going to make her use it just yet. He needed her just as much.

“We’re coming out of hyperspace. Do you want me to drop the bounty so we can get you some better clothes and we can spend time together?” His savings had taken a tank the last time Musō-ka took a bad hit and he had the ship fixed up, but he could go without picking up jobs for a week or two to spend time with her. They could go to some quiet Outer Rim planet, get her some nice things, maybe teach her how to use the scarf. He had a contact that had reverse engineered the tech and made improvements on the one he had, and he needed to get the one she had tuned to her. She didn’t have the benefit of minor telekinesis to make it work, but she would get it. It would just be a little more difficult.

His reputation would take a hit if he let up on this bounty, but a man was entitled to time with his daughter.

“... No,” she decided as she stretched. “But after you finish, can we…?”

“Whatever you want, problem child,” he promised, because the enormity of the situation was hitting him in full force.

He was going to show his daughter the stars, and it was beyond his wildest dreams.

“... Whatever you want after you take a shower and get some more bacta on that black eye,” he added, and her nose crinkled.

“It smells like pineapple. I hate pineapple.”

“Smell doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not it works,” he reminded her, and she huffed as she climbed out of bed. Nuts hopped out after her, purring up a storm as he wound around her legs, probably looking for food. He was  _ really _ getting fat, but Shouta couldn’t be bothered to care. A fat cat was a happy cat.

“Where do I shower?” She asked, and he got up. First lesson: how to work the infernal commands on a shower in this reality, because they were a fucking  _ nightmare. _

“Come on,” he said, because he had about six minutes now. “Meet me in the cockpit when you’re done, and I can show you how to pilot a ship.”

His co-pilot chair was going to finally be full of the person it was meant for, and he couldn’t be happier. He didn’t have the life he lost, would never have it again, but…

He had her.

* * *

She didn’t take long in the shower. The water only got lukewarm, and Yumu wasn’t fond of showers that only got vaguely cold. Dad had thrown her clothes into some kind of washer that washed and dried in fifteen minutes, explained that most people didn’t have large wardrobes here, mostly because they could just wash their clothes as they showered, secondly because spacers stayed on the move and having an excess of personal belongings was a little pointless. That was fine with her; time in the foster system had left her wary of owning too many things. The only thing she had never given up was his backup capture scarf she disguised as regular clothes. No one knew who Eraserhead was, anyways. They didn’t know it was support equipment.

She showered while her dad took them out of hyperspace, and she tried  _ very _ hard not to think about the insanity of the fact that she was in  _ space. _ She had prepared for an alternate reality, but she had honestly pictured her dad as some kind of gunslinger. Him being a bounty hunter made sense, she supposed. Picturing him settling down to farm was just not the idea she had for her father. It felt weird.

She wanted to chop her hair off. Brushing it out while it was soaked in conditioner was easy enough, but it was long and annoying and she wanted it at her shoulders. Maybe some bangs. It felt like if she was going to be… here, she supposed, she should change her look. Maybe she would bring it up to her dad later.

Quiet steps led her out to the cockpit, where Dad was with Nuts, going through landing procedures. Yumu quietly slipped into the chair next to him as she looked at the planet that was  _ there, _ right in front of her, big and bold and colorful.

“We’re really in space,” she whispered, and Dad sent a glance at her.

“It doesn’t stop being weird,” he said, and Yumu’s lips twitched up.

“You get to do this all the time?” She asked, and Dad hummed.

“Flip that red switch,” he ordered, and she flicked it up. “And yes. I travel around a lot. Which is why I have a ship with a bedroom.”

“And a kitchen?” She’d taken a look around when she got out of the bathroom. “I bet you don’t use it.”

“Not often. Lots of rations. Before I pick up this bounty we can get some real food, though.”

“What are rations?”

Dad paused, his hand hovering over the joystick, and then he grimaced.

“On second thought, we’re going grocery shopping, too. You’ll hate them,” he said. “Need caf, anyways.”

“What’s caf?”

“Basically coffee.”

Yumu gave him a side eye at that.

“Your blood pressure is going to be through the roof,” she lamented, and Dad glared at her.

“It’s been less than a day, and you’re already on me.”

“Well, I doubt anyone  _ else _ has,” she protested as they drew closer to the planet.

“Second silver switch, two rows up,” he ordered, and then his face softened. “I  _ did _ make friends.”

“The cat doesn’t count.” She located the switch and flipped it down.

“ _ That _ is a tooka. Cats are completely different,” he retorted, and then she realized they were about to break through the atmosphere. “One second, I need to request landing.”

There was a beeping from a light set into the dash, and he pressed a button, clearing his throat as he said something in a language she didn’t know, would have to learn. There was a reply, and then he traded a few replies with whoever was on speaker, and the light went off.

“Alright. When we go out, we can get a meal, get some shopping done, but you stay next to me at  _ all times. _ No one knows Japanese, you can’t even read, so you do  _ not _ leave my sight,” he said warningly, and she nodded. It wasn’t like she’d  _ want _ to let him out of her sight, but she wasn’t going to say that. “Agree. Please.”

“I will be on you like glue,” she promised, and he nodded firmly.

“You will stay on the ship while I go bring in the bounty. It’ll only be a few hours. Then we go drop her off, and I’ll take us to Naboo for a week. Does that sound good to you?”

“What’s Naboo?” She asked, and he paused, like it hadn’t occurred to him she wouldn’t know.

“It’s a planet near the center of the galaxy. Lots of lakes and meadows and forests. Architecture like Italy. They get a lot of refugees settled there, so they’re used to language barriers and people not being able to read the normal written alphabet, so they’re the best spot for a vacation spot for us right now. Then we’ll head to Carajam, a desert planet where I pick up work, get a couple bounties, and you’ll be starting education modules. Sound fair?”

“Fair,” she said firmly, because this sounded like homeschooling, and after the hell that was public education, she could  _ not _ be more excited.

“Red switch for the landing gear,” he said, and she flicked it on instinct. “Good. Thank you. Now, you know we are  _ in space _ now, which means there will be non-Humans and a lot of things you don’t recognize. What do we say about mutant types?”

“Don’t stare, people are rude enough,” she replied promptly, because he had drilled that into her head from an early age.

“That’s right,” he said with a ghost of a smile on his face. “We don’t stare, and we are polite until proven otherwise. Think you can manage that for me?”

“Just going to a convention!” She replied cheerfully, and the smile actually turned into a real one, gentle and soft and everything she had ever missed.

“That’s my girl,” he said approvingly as he led the ship down onto the platform jutting out over a pier. “Ready to go on your first non-Earth planet?”

_ “Yes.” _

  
She had her dad, and she was in  _ space, _ and  _ gods, _ this was better than anything she could have ever dreamed of. Her home was back together, and she wasn’t going to regret another single thing in her entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's NO LONGER A DEPRESSED MESS. Next up: Korda-6


	6. Chapter 6

Everything had gone to hell, and Jaster didn’t have a clue as to why. He knew the who, that was obvious with the Death Watch sigil as clear as day on the armour of their ambushers, but it wasn’t like the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ wasn’t prepared for missions to go south. What he didn’t understand was how he had gotten separated from everyone else, and how his comms had cut off entirely, leaving him on his own. Something had gone horribly wrong, and he had a sinking feeling that it was going to mean his death.

He had already taken enough bolts that his armour had buckled, and one had gotten past the armour entirely to burn a hole in his side. It might not have been a fatal shot, but he was losing enough blood that it could turn into one. 

Although, he probably wasn’t going to live long enough to die of blood loss. The Death Watch commandos pursuing him were closing in, and he wasn’t in any shape to fight them off.

He was sure as hell going to try though. 

A cannon fired by the ridge he had been driven from, and he looked over.

He wasn’t the target though. No, to his absolute disbelief, and rising hope, the cannon had fired at, and missed a ship.

A very familiar ship. 

How the hell Shouta had shown up in the nick of time, Jaster would have to ask, but he was sure as hell glad to see the old ship now. 

The Dreamer fired back, and from the explosion by the ridge, had taken out the cannon. Jaster smirked. The Dreamer didn’t look like much, and definitely didn’t look like it carried much firepower, but Shouta had poured enough credits, blood, sweat and tears into the ship to have more than enough surprises for the unwary. 

The ship came down, and the ramp opened just wide enough for a figure to drop down ten feet before closing up and rising back into the sky. The figure got up from the crouch they had landed in, and Jaster would recognize that jumpsuit and scarf anywhere. 

Then, blasterfire filled the air as Death Watch spotted them, and Shouta wove his way through to where Jaster had taken cover, effortlessly dodging every shot. He jumped over the rock Jaster was leaning against, and slid down next to him, and Jaster couldn’t help but slouch into his grip. 

“Shouta…” Was all he could say. His tongue had deserted him, like his energy and remaining blood.

Shouta looked good. It was a nonsensical thought to have while people were shooting at them, and Shouta was dragging him by the collar of his  _ kute _ , snarling something in the language Jaster still didn’t understand, but he thought it nonetheless. His face was bare like always, so Jaster could see that his cheeks weren’t as hollow as they’d been a year before. He still had dark shadows under his eyes, but they weren’t nearly as prominent.

His wild hair was also tamed back into a braid, which Jaster had never seen him wear before. It was an extremely good look on him. 

Something had changed in the year that Shouta had gone off the grid. Something big. Hopefully something good. Once they were out of this fight and safe on Jaster’s ship, he was going to get answers. 

After Jaster had thanked Shouta for the save of course. He wasn’t rude, unlike some people. 

Shouta’s ship swung around, and deployed at least three missiles at their pursuers. Jaster wondered who the pilot was. Shouta rarely let anyone pilot his precious ship. Even Jaster had only been allowed once because the man had been concussed that one time on Corellia. 

So who the hell did Shouta trust so much that he let them take The Dreamer into battle?

Obviously, Jaster wasn’t moving fast enough while he’d been woolgathering, because the next thing he knew, Shouta had turned him around, crouched, and tossed him over his shoulder like he was one of his bounties. 

And then he ran, with Jaster in full armour weighing him down, and it was probably only because of how much blood Jaster was losing that he didn’t have a rather awkward issue in his pants. 

Had Shouta gotten stronger? 

Then, he realized that Shouta wasn’t snarling at him anymore, and was instead speaking into the comm on his wrist unit. 

“Yumu!” He barked, and the ship stopped firing and raced back to them, landing as the ramp lowered. “Watashi wa anata ni jū wa nai to iimashita! ”

“Gomen'nasai !” A  _ very _ young voice chirped from the other end,  _ far _ too young, and Shouta was… speaking in his native language? What was a Yumu? The young,  _ very _ young voice, rattled off a nonsensical statement in the foreign language. Why was Shouta speaking his native language?  _ Who _ was on the ship?

“Karking problem child,” Shouta growled under his breath as he hauled Jaster up the ramp. “And karking hardheaded  _ Mandos. _ Was it  _ not _ obvious enough of a trap? Did you need a billboard?”

“You’re letting someone pilot your ship,” Jaster said hazily as the doors slammed shut behind them.

“Yumu!” Shouta hollered at the very top of his lungs. “Watashitachi o dashite kudasai! ”

“Hai!” The young voice called, and Shouta dropped Jaster into an unceremonious lump on the floor.

“What was that about armor?” He asked viciously as he started stripping him. The ship rumbled into the air, and Jaster blinked at Shouta.

“... Is there a child piloting the ship?” He asked faintly as the ship rocked with a hit from the cannons. There was a surge, and  _ oh, _ the kid was as much of a speed demon as Shouta. Okay.

“Yes, my daughter is piloting the ship,” Shouta snapped as he unsnapped the armor with precise movements. “Kark, this is bad.”

Jaster’s head descended into a hazy mess as Shouta methodically stripped him and yanked bacta patches out of the medkit to start plastering the worst of the wounds.

“Daughter?” He asked hazily.

“Yes, I finally found my daughter. Jaster, you’re bleeding out, can we discuss this later?”

Finally… found his daughter.

_ ‘What I could have had with her.’ _

The last coherent thought on Jaster’s mind was that he should really, really make a habit out of asking for more clarification, because that had been… six years ago.

Ah. He was an idiot.

And unconsciousness was stealing him away.

* * *

“---disappeared for a year! Buir was worried about you! And where did she come from!” Jaster woke with a jolt, because that was Jango shouting, and he needed to be awake. He tried to sit up, but was immediately pushed down by a hand on his shoulder. Granted, he probably didn’t need to be pushed. As soon as he had moved, his body had screamed at him, his side one mass of red-hot pain. 

He wasn’t going anywhere quickly anytime soon. 

“Stay down Jaster, you’re okay. Jango’s here; he’s fine.” That was Shouta talking, he could trust him, Shouta never lied to him. 

Jaster certainly didn’t feel okay, though. He tried saying this, but only got out a grunt that was nowhere close to actual words. Shouta seemed to get the message though.

“I know, you probably feel like hell, but you’re going to recover, you karking idiot.” There was fondness in the words, and he wanted to see it on Shouta’s face, so he tried opening his eyes. It took a couple moments, but he did it.

He was looking up at the ceiling of Shouta’s quarters on The Dreamer, and three faces were leaning over him. There was Shouta, obvious relief in his eyes if not in the grim set of his mouth. There was Jango, his  _ ad _ , who had tears in his eyes but was bravely putting on a smile for him.

Such a good  _ ad _ , his son.

He didn’t know the third one, but he remembered those moments before he had passed out. A young face, not even thirteen, pale as Shouta and with hair just as dark as his, with eyes as black as the void of space. 

This had to be Shouta’s  _ ad _ , his daughter. The one he’d been searching for. 

She was peering at him, curious and shy, glued to Shouta’s side. 

It was an adorable image, and a good one to wake up to.

“ _ Buir _ , I--” Jango started and stopped, rubbing a hand across his eyes, and then leaned down slowly to press his brow to Jaster’s, obviously not taking the chance of hurting him to hug him. With a heave of effort, Jaster managed to bring an arm up to cradle the back of Jango’s head.

“I’m alive, Jango,” he rasped, but it was intelligible words this time, so he would take it. They stayed like that for a moment, and then Jango leaned back. 

“You almost weren’t,  _ buir _ . You almost--” Shouta grasped Jango’s shoulder, and he leaned into the grip. It warmed Jaster that Jango would still take comfort from Shouta, even if he’d sounded pissed with him earlier. Jango had always looked up to Shouta, from that first meeting onward, and Jaster would hate for there to be a wedge between them. 

“Montross betrayed us!” Jango blurted, and there was fury and pain in his voice. The words struck Jaster with all the force of a blaster bolt, and a real one had been less painful.

“What?” He needed confirmation. Montross was a moody bastard, and didn’t get along with anyone, but he was loyal, Jaster had trusted him, he couldn’t have---

“The contract was a trap, Jas. Death Watch got word that you were coming, from Montross. He wanted you dead.” Shouta was blunt and to the point. His voice wasn’t gentle. 

Jaster wouldn’t have thanked him for gentle. No, he needed blunt, to get it through his head that the man he had trusted to be his second, to look after the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ in his stead, to advise Jango when he took over, that Montross had turned out to be a traitor. 

Shouta had said it, and he didn’t lie to Jaster. He closed his eyes, and pushed aside the hurt, the sorrow, the rage. There would be time for that later.

“Hello.” Jaster opened his eyes at the small voice. Shouta’s  _ ad _ had stepped to the bed and knelt, putting her small face at his level. She had the same accent as her  _ buir _ , but much thicker. It was precious. Her head was cocked, ever so slightly. 

“Hello there  _ ad’ika _ . You’re Shouta’s kid, right?” He asked, still raspy, but getting clearer. She nodded, and he noticed that her dark hair was pulled back into two neat braids just long enough hover over her shoulders. His eyes darted to Shouta, and he saw that his braid was not nearly as neat. As if it had been done by less sure, younger fingers.

Well, if he hadn’t been head over heels before, that image would have done it. 

“I’m Yumu, Yumemu Aizawa. Dad talk about you,” she informed him, halting and slow, almost tripping over her words, and he had to smile. He was hurting, and needed more painkillers, he had almost died due to the betrayal of someone he trusted, and there were a million things he would need to take care of. But Shouta had saved him, again, and here was Shouta’s daughter, small and sure and precious beyond belief. 

It wasn’t the worst day to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watashi wa anata ni jū wa nai to iimashita: I told you no guns!  
> Gomen'nasai: Sorry!  
> Watashitachi o dashite kudasai: Get us out of here  
> Hai: term of acknowledgment
> 
> Give Yumu missiles; she deserves them.


	7. Chapter 7

The eleven year old was making something in the small kitchenette with Jango. They were on their way to the rendezvous with the rest of the  _ Haat Mando’ade, _ but it would be a good three days of travel back to Concord Dawn. So, in the meantime, the girl was cooking. Jaster was watching with interest. Shouta rarely cooked, and when he  _ did, _ it was food from his home that went entirely unmentioned. The girl, apparently, felt that she needed to cook home food as well, because there she was with Jango, breading strips of some kind of poultry and showing him how to pack on the breadcrumbs. She was quiet, calm, with big black eyes and a soft smile. Gentle, for all that she had ripped Death Watch to shreds from the safety of the cockpit. Dressed in a jumpsuit like her father, but pale blue with a tighter and sleeveless top and her own scarf draped over her shoulders.

“Lay it gentle,” she commanded Jango and demonstrated, gently draping the poultry into the popping hot oil, and he obeyed, gently laying down a strip of poultry and hissing when a pop of oil hit his bare hand.

“Cuckoo katsu,” Yumu said quietly as she checked the covered pot with the rice inside. “We need katsu sauce.”

The girl rifled around a cabinet before leaning back on a heel to yell something in their native language down the hall towards the cockpit. Shouta yelled something back, and she nodded before standing on her tiptoes to get a bottle of some kind of spice out of the cabinet. Shouta emerged from the hall, leaning on the doorway.

“You got it?” He asked, voice smooth and slow, making sure she was following along, and she looked back at him before firmly nodding.

“I got it,” she confirmed, the words thick on her tongue before a glance was flicked back to Jaster. Shouta studied her and Jango, shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen, before he glanced at Jaster.

“Wanna give them some space?” He asked as he looked over the Mandalorian with a critical eye. Oh, so he was actually going to explain himself now. Wonderful. Jaster grunted and held out an arm, and Shouta smoothly moved to help pull him to his feet and lead him into the small rec room.

The few steps hurt like a bitch, and Jaster couldn’t help but glance back anxiously over his shoulder at the kids sharing space so well. He was worried they’d get in a fight, but Jango seemed to be taking to her presence well. Maybe even enjoyed her company.

Shouta leveraged him down to the couch, and Jaster sunk into it, his side aching and burning, but doing a lot better with the dermal mending and bacta patch plastered across his skin. He’d have to replenish Shouta’s medkit after this. They had stuff with the rest of the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _

Kark, they were all going to lose their damn minds. Everyone already loved Shouta’s grouchy self to hell and back, and they’d all been very put out when he disappeared for a year, asked Jaster what he did to run him off. They were going to lose it when they found out Shouta cut him off to bond with his recently-discovered missing daughter no one knew about. That was some Mandalorian bullshit if Jaster had ever heard of it, cutting off your semi-significant other to fuck off with your kid for bonding time.

Shouta sat down next to him and stayed silent for a few moments, watching the kids move around the kitchen. It felt vaguely domestic, in a way that it had never quite felt with Jango. Like Yumu belonged there, filled in a piece Jaster didn’t know was missing.

How many times had Shouta stared at Jango and filled in the empty space in his mind?

“It was only three years for her,” Shouta said quietly. “A decade for me. I met you… six months after I lost her.”

“We would have helped you,” Jaster said softly, and Shouta huffed out a laugh.

“There wasn’t much anyone could do,” he murmured as he looked at her like she had descended from the heavens. Like he was in  _ awe, _ and could Jaster get any more in love with him?

“Was she kidnapped? Is she still in danger? We can---”

“She wasn’t kidnapped,” Shouta cut in. “She was… just too far away to reach. Nothing could be done, until she did it. Coming to me was more dangerous than staying.”

“... She didn’t give up on you,” Jaster breathed out, and  _ stars, _ he was going to love this kid. Shouta dropped his head.

“She isn’t someone that gives up. I think she… knew I was miserable on my own,” he replied.

“So all this time…” Jaster couldn’t imagine losing Jango. He’d only had him for a short time in his life, and he loved him more than anything. But Jango was fifteen now, and a lot more independent. It sounded like Shouta had raised Yumu since she was small and fragile and  _ helpless. _ The fact that for a decade Shouta had done nothing but get up in the morning and mourn… Jaster didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know how to feel. Because Shouta had never once opened up to him about it, but Shouta didn’t talk about anything regarding his life before he met Jaster. Jaster didn’t know where he was from, what he had lost, his culture, his identity. He just knew Shouta. He was an endless mystery and Jaster was hopelessly in love with him.

“You disappeared for a year,” he accused, and Shouta snorted.

“She didn’t speak Basic, could only read and write in our mother tongue, had never even been on a ship. I hadn’t seen her in a decade, and she hadn’t seen me in three years. Getting her used to the galaxy was hard enough without throwing in a full culture to immerse herself in when she was barely figuring out the world she’d found herself in. I wanted to just… be with her. For awhile. Get her feet under her, get her used to everything, before I started dragging her around the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _ She’s… traumatized. In our home, there’s child services for kids who’ve lost their families. I was her first foster parent, after… Well, something happened with the biological parents, and I had her for three years. But her and I had… similar issues in our culture that marked us as outsiders. There was… we were considered inherently evil for something we couldn’t help. So the three years without me were very rough for her. I went through the same, came out of the same system. She would have panicked in a culture like Mandalorian. Would have made her really paranoid, wondering when the hammer was going to fall. It was the right choice for her, and I… wanted to be a bit selfish.”

Shouta rolled out his shoulders, didn’t wait for Jaster to react to  _ that _ excess of information, more than Jaster ever knew about him, and straightened up.

“It was the best choice for us both. Sorry I didn’t tell you.” He wasn’t sorry, but Jaster was willing to give him this. Jango had been traumatized when he found him, and he waited three months to introduce him to Shouta. Yumu clearly had different trauma, and Shouta had taken the time that she needed herself.

“She seems like a great kid,” Jaster hedged out, and Shouta snorted.

“She’s a terror. Won’t stop getting into my damned blasters. I teach her how to use a scarf and now she thinks she can just use  _ anything. _ I caught her teaching herself how to throw a knife last week.” He was proud, even as he complained, and Jaster felt something fond and aching flicker in his chest.

“I thought you were mourning another woman,” he admitted, and Shouta shot him a disbelieving glance.

“... I’m gay.”

“... Oh.” In hindsight, Jaster really should ask questions more often. Ten years, and this was what he got. Shouta showing up with a kid he never knew about, revealing that he was gay, and it was an entirely different kind of mourning that was keeping them apart. Had Shouta not thought he deserved to move on…?

That was exactly what Shouta had thought, and Jaster thought about how he brought Jango in and out, showing Shouta everything he had lost without even a shred of awareness, and how Shouta had just been  _ patient. _ Thoughtful. Kind, for all his gruff exterior. Hard, but in the best of ways. Never voiced how much it had to hurt to see even as Jaster flaunted everything he mourned. Just accepted the pain and pushed through it, because Jaster was happy and stupid and Shouta was selfless.

“I’m not sure she’s ready,” Shouta murmured as Yumu showed Jango how to whisk up the sauce she was making. His eyes looked dangerously misty. “But… I think at some point I have to trust her to land on her feet.”

_ Stars, _ Jaster had a lot to think about it. By all rights, he should be mad, but…

_ Ade _ came first, always, and Yumu had evidently been here first. If Shouta thought she wasn’t ready, thought that  _ he _ wasn’t ready to talk to Jaster about it, because really, this was a  _ much _ different situation than Jaster becoming a new father, well...

Jaster couldn’t begrudge him it.

* * *

So much had happened in the last standard rotation, and Jango’s head was still spinning a bit. So, it had been a bit of a relief when the kid, Yumu, that was her name, had tugged him to the kitchen while Shouta redressed  _ buir’s _ side. Cooking was something that was productive, and would keep his hands busy, and Yumu didn’t seem to have any issues directing him. Whatever they were making definitely smelled good, rice and steamed vegetables and poultry and bread crumbs and a sauce that, while milder than the Mandalorian spices he preferred, still smelled flavorful.

It also gave him a chance to study the kid. Shouta’s  _ ad _ , and what a shock that was. Jango had known Shouta for nearly six years now, the bounty hunter swooping in and out of their lives, both in person and over comms. He’d known  _ buir _ considered the man trustworthy, that he’d been trying to get Shouta to join the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ for a while, but it had taken a few meetings to come to the conclusion everyone else had.

_ Buir _ was completely head over heels in love with Shouta. Completely stupid with it, and maybe Jango should have had a problem with it, with someone taking up his  _ buir’s _ attention, but…

Jango liked Shouta. He always had. Everytime he came around, or commed, the bounty hunter had made a point in talking to him, teaching him something new, patiently telling stories, helping with education modules if  _ buir _ wasn’t around. He never talked down to Jango, or treated him like someone he had to put up with to keep being friends with Jaster. Hell, a few times, it almost seemed like he ignored  _ buir _ in favor of Jango!

So imagining Shouta as _buir’s_ _riduur_ , as Jango’s other _buir_ …. Well, Jango certainly wouldn’t protest.

And then, Shouta had completely dropped off the grid for the last year, and Jango had to watch his  _ buir _ get more and more anxious as each month went by without even a comm to say Shouta was still alive. It had been getting to the point where Jango was contemplating taking a few of the  _ verde _ to go on a hunt for him, just to calm his  _ buir _ down, or at least get some closure.

But now, here Shouta was, saving his _ buir’s _ life, with a kid in tow that Shouta had never even bothered to comm him about.

It was hard to get too mad at him, though. Not with  _ buir _ alive, and not with how Yumu was winning him over already.

She was a tiny thing, slim and short. That didn’t stop her from taking charge in the kitchen. Her directions to him were in slow, slightly broken, heavily accented Basic, but were clear and concise nonetheless.

Once everything was cooking on the stove, she turned to him, and gave a small smile, reminiscent of Shouta’s.

“Thank you. For being with him. Both you and Jas-ter.” She glanced over at where the two parents were speaking quietly, and Jango had to smile at how closely they were sitting together.

Utterly hopeless, the two of them.

“ _ Nayc _ , there’s no debt. He was there for us just as much,” he replied, and she wrinkled her nose a bit, but didn’t protest.

“ _ Nayc? _ ” She asked, and dear  _ ka’ra _ , her accent was atrocious, but too karking cute. He turned back to the stove to hide his smile.

“It means no, in  _ Mando’a _ ,” he said, and she nodded seriously, obviously committing it to memory. They fell silent again as Yumu returned her attention to the food. Jango went to grab bowls, because that was something he knew to find without any direction, having helped in this kitchen before.

Although, there was definitely a lot more actual food stored than he ever remembered Shouta ever having. Probably an influence of having Yumu with him, and that was definitely a good thing.

A tiny huff of amusement came from behind him, and he turned, bowls in hand. Nuts, the tooka that had been haunting Shouta’s ship as long as he had known him, had apparently wandered in for food, and was now draped across Yumu’s shoulders, nestled into the scarf, and rubbing his cheek against the girl’s. Apparently the tooka loved her just as much as Shouta.

“Hey, Nuts.” He reached a hand out for Nuts to sniff, like he always did before he pet him, and the tooka leaned away from Yumu for a brief moment to brush his fingers, then went back to claiming Yumu. Jango took that as permission, and scratched behind the large ears. 

“I see you and Nuts are friends. You know, he hates Jaster. It’s kind of funny,” Jango said, grinning. Yumu paused, clearly mentally translating in her head, and then she huffed in amusement again and nodded in confirmation once she decided it was funny.

“Dad told me. Made him laugh,” she said, and it was obvious that she considered that the important part. Considering how solemn the man often was, Jango wasn’t surprised. She passed him the whisk for the sauce, and motioned for him to start stirring again, so he did, trying to figure out how to word what he wanted to ask. 

“So when did he… pick you up?” Jango asked awkwardly, and she blinked at him, her mouth moving as she repeated what he said under her breath. Right. Language barrier. Jango was honestly curious, though. Shouta had never made mention of a home planet, but she had the same accent as him, and he was speaking to her in a language he had never heard Shouta use before.

“Pick me up,” she repeated, her brows furrowing, before she reached out with the tongs to flip the frying cuckoo.

“Like… found you?” He tried, and her face cleared.

“Found me. Uh…” She trailed off, face screwed in concentration. “I found him. After we lost each other.”

Jango blinked. She wasn’t a Foundling? She  _ looked _ like Shouta, but he assumed that was because they were from the same planet.

“Lost each other?” He echoed, and she nodded as she flipped the other cutlet.

“Lost each other,” she confirmed. “Sorry. Only learned Basic a year ago. Well. I am learning.”

Jango didn’t remember Shouta ever mentioning that he had a daughter. Granted, Shouta never really talked about himself, unless he was telling Jango about his jobs, but nothing was ever mentioned about his childhood, what he did before he was a bounty hunter, where he grew up. There was a lot of confusion spiraling around right now, and he found himself glancing through the doorway to look at his  _ buir _ speaking to her  _ buir _ in quiet tones.  _ Buir _ looked a little torn, like he didn’t know how to feel, and Shouta looked a little sad. Not that you could read Shouta’s face well, ever, but he did look sad.

Jango looked back at the girl next to him, and she hummed, grabbing his wrist and halting him in his whisking.

“It’s good,” she said, and stuck her finger in it to dart out a taste. She crinkled up her nose and grabbed more of the pungent yellow powder, dashing it in and gesturing for him to stir it in. Jango obeyed, mixing until it was together as he tried to figure out a way to convey his confusion in a way she’d understand, because she was  _ eleven, _ Shouta had told him, and Shouta must have been a teenager when he met Jaster ten years ago. Had he lost her at a year old?

Wait, this meant Shouta was interested in  _ women. _ Was he interested in men, too? He’d  _ better _ be interested in men, or this was going to be an awkward decade to explain, considering  _ buir _ had been openly courting him in the Mandalorian way since he was named  _ Mand’alor. _

“When did you lose each other?” He asked, and she hummed.

“Seven, I was seven,” she replied, and his confusion only grew, because…

“Did he only see you sometimes?” He had seen a  _ lot _ of Shouta after he first met him, and Shouta had definitely  _ not _ made mention of Yumu, and  _ buir _ had  _ never _ brought her up. He was just as confused as Jango at the discovery that Shouta was a parent.

“No. We lived together,” she responded, like it was a fact, and Jango looked between her and Shouta, trying to figure out just what the  _ hell _ she was on about.

“But that was four years ago,” he protested. “ _ Buir _ doesn’t know.”

“Ten,” she corrected, and Jango paused.

“... Are the years… longer on your planet?” He asked, because everything was  _ so _ confusing, and she paused thoughtfully.

“Maybe?” She darted another finger into the sauce and tried it. “Taste, please?”

Jango obliged, and his eyes widened at the flavor. Oh. He’d been worried that it wasn’t spicy, but this was…  _ good. _ Sweet, just a tad, and extremely savory, with just a bite of non-spicy pepper.

“Oh, that’s good.” Years had to be different on their planet. Maybe… Huh. What if Shouta wasn’t Human? He certainly  _ looked _ Human, but Koruns weren’t  _ technically _ Humans. What if he aged slower? Jango wasn’t a good judge of that sort of thing. Shouta looked anywhere between twenty-five to forty. “... Are you guys Human?”

“...” Yumu tilted her head at that, considering, before she poked at the katsu and then turned to speak to Shouta. “Otōsan, toriniku o chekku dekimasu ka? ”

Shouta sighed and pulled himself to his feet, drifting over to poke at the cuckoo chicken thoughtfully.

“It’s done,” he pronounced and promptly turned and walked away. “Anata wa ryōri suru to itta. Watashi wa anata no tame ni sore o shimasen. ”

“Wagamama ,” she muttered rebelliously, and then turned back to pluck the cutlets out of the frying oil. Jango watched the exchange with some degree of amusement as she laid the cutlets down on a plate lined in paper to soak up the oil. “Cut like this.”

Demonstrating, she pointed out vertical lines with her index finger, and Jango obligingly got a knife before he fully registered that both of her hands were wrapped in gloves that only covered the pinky. Weird choice to cook with. And the pads of her fingers seemed… slightly discolored. No, they were actually visibly gray above her last knuckles, right where fingerprints would be.

“We are…” Yumu trailed off in response to his question, tilting her head as he used the tongs to brace the meat to cut. “Yes? Not like you, though. I do not think. Don’t think? Conjugation okay there, right?”

“Yeah, you can conjugate that,” he replied as he sliced into the meat, cutting up neat little slices. Maybe that was why her fingers were different? They didn’t look like a  _ normal _ injury. But Shouta didn’t have fingers like that. Maybe it was like blood types, varying between different people?

“Bowls,” she ordered as she uncovered the rice, and he handed them over as she started fluffing up the rice with sure hands. Four bowls were piled with rice, and she nestled in the steamed vegetables, followed by the sliced chicken topped off with the sauce. “Food time! Thank you, Jango.”

Shouta got up from his seat at the table next to Jaster and grabbed two bowls. Chopsticks, which Jango had gotten used to after being around Shouta for so long, were plucked out of their drawer, and Shouta double checked the stove to make sure everything was off.

“Good job,” he said, and dropped a quick kiss to the top of Yumu’s head before he swept off into the rec room. Jango followed with his own bowl, Yumu on his heels with Nuts still curled up in her scarf. All four of them arranged themselves around the table, and Shouta ducked his head at Yumu.

“ Itadakimasu ,” he said, and then paused, like he was startled. Yumu raised an amused brow at him, and Jango looked between the two of them.

“What?” He asked, and Yumu snorted.

“Dad was not polite with you,” she said, a small smile curling at her lips.

“They wouldn’t have known what it meant, Yumu,” Shouta shot back, and  _ buir _ leaned over to look at Shouta.

“Known what what meant?”

“Itadakimasu is what you say before meal,” Yumu provided, and Shouta gave her a long suffering look. “It means ‘I receive this meal’. Polite to say to the person who cooked. Good manners, which Dad forgot.”

“I wasn’t anywhere where it  _ was _ polite, Yumu,” Shouta shot back.

“Don’t even take off your shoes,” Yumu muttered, and Shouta let out an aggravated huff.

“Ships you shove bounties into don’t count.”

“You take off your shoes in your culture?”  _ Buir _ asked, possibly too gleefully, and Jango realized with a dawning sense of horror that  _ buir _ had waited a solid ten years to grill Shouta on his mysterious and unknown culture, and now he was being given a chance to go full-throttle.

“Yes,” Yumu replied cheerfully as she took a bite of her cuckoo. “Hygiene is very valued. Shoes are dirty. We only had water showers.”

“But sonics are technically cleaner,” Jango said, and Yumu frowned at him.

“Sonic is no replacement for soap. You still smell.”

“Do you have Force traditions?” Jaster asked, and Yumu snorted, like that was funny.

“No. We  _ do _ have… Dad, how many religions?”

“Too many,” Shouta muttered darkly, stabbing his chopsticks into his bowl before he took a bite of his food. “But… five major, and hundreds, if not thousands, minor ones.”

“... That sounds chaotic,”  _ buir _ said slowly, and Yumu’s lips twitched up slyly.

“Lots of wars,” she agreed, rather sageously. “But religion is not the main problem  _ now. _ People get very upset about biology.”

Well. That explained an unnerving amount about Shouta’s disdain for inter-species racism. No wonder he took off.

“So if you have five major religions, do you two believe in the major ones?”  _ Buir _ asked, because now he was about to vibrate out of his skin with excitement, and he was supposed to be  _ resting, _ dammit.

“No,” Shouta replied, looking a little hunted. Who knew all it would take for him to finally open up about his home was a lifelong commitment to a child? Jango needed to take notes.

“Shinto,” Yumu cut in. “One of the major ones in our region, minor to the rest of the world.”

“What comprises the Shinto faith?”  _ Buir _ asked, and Jango had a sinking feeling that this was going to turn into another attempt to get Shouta to swear the  _ Resol’nare _ and stay put for once. Jango wouldn’t  _ complain, _ but  _ buir _ was entirely too stubborn.

“It’s complicated,” Shouta added, looking defeated, because he was allergic to sharing. “It’s tied to our ancestral lands for the most part. It doesn’t quite translate as well out in space.”

“We have to reassess,” Yumu said seriously.

“I’d love to hear more about it,”  _ buir _ said firmly, and Yumu’s lips twitched.

“Dad says nerd stuff gets you worked up,” she replied, and Jango  _ almost _ choked as Shouta sighed. “When you are better, I will tell you about  _ kami. _ ”

“You betrayed me before I even got a chance to meet her,”  _ Buir _ complained to Shouta, and Shouta lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.

“She asked about you,” he replied, and Jango’s lips twitched as he tried to work around chopsticks and rice. Shouta had always loved rice, and Jango had never got a handle on using chopsticks for it. Shouta  _ had _ sporks, but it was a matter of pride at this point.

There was a beep from  _ buir’s _ comm, and everything stopped for a moment. Jango’s eyes drifted to his father’s worn and pained face, even as he tried to work through the food, and then back to the comm set into his vambrace. It would be  _ Mand’alor _ things. They were absolutely going to call. But…

“Can I get it?” He asked, and  _ buir _ hesitated.

“I can get it,” he said, and Yumu nudged Jango, looked at him with big, big eyes.

“Are you going to be the next  _ Mand’alor? _ ” She asked, possibly too innocently, and Jango stared down at her before both of them slowly turned to stare at  _ buir _ pointedly.

  
Yes, it was decided. They were dragging Shouta into the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ whether he liked it or not. In the name of backup for their stupid workaholic fathers, it had to be done. Jango had just found his next partner in crime, and he was  _ not _ giving her up, not for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations
> 
> Otōsan, toriniku o chekku dekimasu ka: Dad, can you check the kitchen?
> 
> Anata wa ryōri suru to itta. Watashi wa anata no tame ni sore o shimasen: You said you would cook. I won't do it for you.
> 
> Wagamama: Selfish.
> 
> Itadakimasu: I receive this meal.
> 
> Jango has a partner in crime, as he deserves.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: credit given to thelastbattlecry for Myles's last name, as there does not seem to be a canon last name. - Blue_Eyed_Dreamer

That had gone far better than Shouta could have hoped for. Sure, Jaster and Jango were still a little confused, maybe a little upset at how he’d pretty much ignored them for the past year, but they seemed perfectly fine with Yumu. It helped that for the most part, Yumu was behaving herself, and seemed inclined to be fairly polite, even as she was scolding his lack of manners, and already teaming up with Jango for some impressive guilt trips to keep Jaster in line. He was beginning to realize that now that she had an appreciative audience, more of that would probably be coming in the future, along with a few of his more embarrassing moments.

It was worth it, though. He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted Jaster and Jango to meet Yumu, right up until Yumu and Jango had started cooking in the kitchen together. That had been… Well, it had been good.

He’d had everyone he cared about in this galaxy in one place, and he felt whole. Like this was exactly where he was meant to be. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. Jaster had nearly been killed in a trap, Montross was a fucking traitor, and worse, and there were still decisions to be made moving forward for the future, but Shouta had long since learned that nothing was perfect, and trying to make it so led to nothing but disappointment.

Montross though… He’d never liked Jaster’s second. Had never been able to relax in his presence, had never wanted to put his back to the man, hadn’t wanted Jaster to put his back to him… would never have wanted Yumu in the same room, come to think of it. And that should have been a warning sign.

Still, just a strong dislike had never seemed a good enough reason to think that the man was untrustworthy.

Shouta regretted not following up on that. Maybe if he had, if he'd found the evidence sooner…. Still, at least Montross hadn’t escaped. Jango had said that he’d been caught trying to flee when Shouta had retrieved Jaster, and that the other  _ verde _ were keeping him in the brig of one of the other ships for now, until they could all meet up safely. Jaster had the final call on what to do with him, even if Shouta would be perfectly fine with spacing him.

Not a particularly heroic thing to say, but then again, Shouta wasn’t a Hero anymore. The rules of this galaxy were different, and trying to live by the laws of a planet he would never see again was illogical. Living by his moral code, and setting a good example for Yumu to follow, that he could and would do.

In any case, as long as Montross was either dead, or far away from anyone he could hurt, Shouta could be satisfied.

It was very tempting to try to get a punch in himself, but not necessary.

Shouta just hated that by showing Jaster just what his second had done, he was going to be breaking his friend's heart. Jaster had trusted him like a brother, and Shouta could kill Montross for that betrayal alone.

Nuts purred from his lap, drawing his attention back to the ship controls, and then the warning beep sounded. They were five minutes out from exiting hyperspace, and would then land on Concord Dawn, where he and Jaster had first met all those years ago. It was almost like they were completing a full circle, coming back like this, now with Yumu by his side.

“We’re five minutes out from exiting hyperspace,” he said into the comms, then clicked off. He wasn’t surprised when a bare minute later, he heard footsteps behind him, and then Yumu slid into the co-pilot’s chair. She almost always wanted to help with landing, and it had made Shouta both amused and proud at how quickly she had taken to flying the Musō-ka. Her reaction at being told the name… well, neither of their eyes had been dry. Shouta had probably cried more in the past year than he had in his entire life.

“Jango is with Jaster," she told him, still speaking Basic. Which was good, good that she was still applying herself to getting fluent in it, though her progress had already been amazing. She could get by in both written and spoken Basic, was on her way to being conversational in Huttese, and could even speak a little bit of Bocce, and they were all hard languages to learn. She still stumbled over some conversations, and like any new language, didn’t always get the idioms, but that would just take time. Time that they had.

“Good, Jango won’t let Jaster be too much of an idiot.” Yumu gave him the side eye and raised an eyebrow. He ignored it. He wasn’t nearly as reckless as Jaster.

Mercifully, Yumu left it at that, but he was pretty sure that she would now be using the chance of meeting the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ as an opportunity to get more people on his case regarding self care. Such a worry wart, his kid.

They came out of hyperspace smoothly, and then his comms immediately started beeping.

Shouta accepted the call, and prepared for the hysterics.

“Shouta! How’s  _ ‘Alor _ ? Is he okay? I know Jango said he was fine, but everything’s gone wrong this week.” Yumu blinked at the immediate outpouring of words, and Shouta knew Myles had spoken too fast for her to catch all of it.

“Jaster’s fine, just gonna be sore for a bit. My med kit was fully stocked, thankfully. We’ll meet you at the compound.” He kept his voice firm and calm, willing Myles to keep his head. Myles was a good kid, only a year or two older than Jango, but reliable and climbing the ranks. He was still young for all that though, and Shouta really didn’t want to talk him out of his panic while they were still flying a ship. Best for all that emotion when they were on solid ground and Myles could see with his own eyes that everyone was fine.

“He didn’t downplay anything, did he?” Myles asked seriously, because he knew Jaster was an idiot just the same as everyone else in the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _ Apparently, the bigger dumbass you were, to Mandalorians, the more qualified you were for leadership.

Shouta spared a glance to Yumu, who was listening intently, mouthing along to the words, and he wasn’t sure if she knew ‘downplay’ yet. He was drilling in learning through context clues, but…

“No,” he replied, because he didn’t have a choice in the matter. Lying to Shouta only got progressively less gentle hands when changing a bandage. “We’re coming in. What landing pad do you want us on?”

“One,” Myles replied promptly. “We have medics waiting for you.”

“Be there in five minutes,” Shouta said, and Yumu reached to flick the switches to switch them into atmospheric mode. “The worst of it is through; bacta’s done its job. He just needs a check up and rest for the next few days.”

“... Thanks for coming back,” Myles suddenly said, infinitely more quiet, and Shouta and Yumu both paused. “We were getting worried. See you soon.”

The transmission ended, and Shouta blinked a few times before he shook himself, focusing on guiding the ship through the atmosphere.

“Remember they can be a friendly bunch,” he said to Yumu in Japanese, and she made a vague grunt, more focused on watching their readings with a hawk’s eye. “Violently friendly.”

“I know,” she said with a flicker of a smile. “I’m not scared.”

“I don’t think you’ve been scared of anything in your life,” Shouta said dryly as they broke through the trashed atmosphere that was Concord Dawn. Getting through was a tricky thing. The blasted up planet had created some  _ weird _ gravitational pulls, but Shouta had done this a million times over the past decade, and he had a decent handle on it. Guiding the ship through was as easy as breathing nowadays.

He definitely wouldn’t trust Yumu to do it yet, though. One of these days he’d teach her how to handle a non-standard atmosphere.

It didn’t take long for the sight of the compound to rise up, sprawling and vast, and he realized he was finally introducing Yumu to the  _ Haat Mando’ade, _ and  _ stars, _ that was a terrifying thought. What if she didn’t like them? She seemed to like Jaster and Jango just fine, but she had never gotten good with being crowded or large amounts of people giving her targeted attention. She’d been attached at the hip since she came into his world, clinging and a silent shadow. His coworkers had found it hilarious, gave her a callsign, ‘Little Devil’, but at the compound, the kids were encouraged to run free and  _ not _ cling to their parents. She hadn’t even really been around kids her own age in a solid year.

He was probably more nervous than she was. He’d gotten used to the secure knowledge that if she wasn’t in his shadow, she was back on the ship while he was working. She’d done well with Jango, but he was old enough to be one of his students, if he was still…

Well. If he was still Eraserhead. But Eraserhead was long dead. It still felt like a loss.

The landing pad was coming up, and he twisted Musō-ka around to coast her into landing. Yumu deployed the landing gear, and they settled down to the sight of no less than ten Mandalorians and five battlefield medics.

“Alright,” he said and turned to her as he let down the ramp. “Ready to meet the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ ?”

“Yep!” She replied cheerfully, without a care in the world, and made a beeline for the doors.

Fuck, he wished he had half the confidence as an eleven year old. If only she knew how irritated they probably were with him for dropping off the map.

Time to pay the piper.

* * *

Myles would have preferred it if someone had  _ mentioned _ that they were bringing a plus one, but now everything made a  _ lot _ more sense. Everyone in Jaster’s circle had been gradually more and more disgruntled over the past year due to Shouta’s mysterious absence, miffed that he took off without an even by-your-leave, not even bothering to comm Jaster. Their  _ Mand’alor _ had been having a steady and silent meltdown over Shouta being missing, but never enough to just take off and go  _ collect _ him, and there had been a lot of rumors of whether or not they had had a fight.

Well. It was definitely not a fight, and no one had ever accused Shouta of having effective communication methods. He could have just  _ told _ Jaster he was taking off to bond with his new kid.

Oh well, he’d leave explaining that up to  _ ‘Alor _ and Jango. Maybe Maris, too. He liked Shouta, almost everyone did, but there was no denying that the man could be more than a bit intimidating. Myles really didn’t want to take up the job of outright scolding him.

Besides, he’d much rather spend time getting to know the new  _ ad _ . ‘ _ Alor _ had been whisked away by Veli and the other medics, leaving Jango, Shouta and his kid on the landing platform. To his credit, Myles thought Shouta looked a tiny bit sheepish as he got the side eye from the remaining  _ verde _ , but then all attention was drawn away by a single voice breaking the silence.

“Hello!” The kid raised a semi-gloved hand in a wave, not intimidated at all by the armoured people around her. Myles grinned. Of course Shouta’s kid wouldn’t be easily scared.

“Hi there  _ ad’ika _ . Welcome to Concord Dawn. I’m Myles Fayte.” He took off his helmet, and offered an arm. She stepped forward and clasped it correctly, so Shouta had obviously shown her how.

“I am Yumemu Aizawa. Call me Yumu.” She shook his arm, and let go, young face serious. She quickly stepped back to her  _ buir’s _ side, so she was probably a bit more nervous than she was letting on, but that was alright. She would learn.

He watched as the others introduced themselves, and Shouta let Yumu greet them back by herself, and noted Jango’s face. He’d thought it was a bit strange that Jango hadn’t immediately taken off after the medics, but seeing his friend keep  _ jaig _ eyes on Yumu, Myles figured it was to make sure Yumu settled in alright. Jango was pretty decisive about whether he approved of someone or not. Those he did like, he tended to try and keep close. Shouta was one that he definitely liked, and it looked like that had extended to Yumu as well.

“We have Yumu to thank for taking out that cannon that was giving us trouble, and for blowing Death Watch to kingdom come,” Jango said casually, bringing all conversation to a halt. Myles blinked, thought back to the disaster on Korda-6 and…

“Wait, that was you piloting The Dreamer?! I thought that was Shouta!” Myles blurted. Shouta sighed, looking a bit exasperated, giving Yumu the side eye. Yumu herself was nodding, looking pleased as anything.

Well. That explained why Jango liked her already. Myles was kind of considering adoption himself, or he would have if Shouta hadn’t already done so.

Hmmmm, maybe he should offer more support for those trying to get Shouta to swear the  _ Resol’nare _ . Yumu was obviously just as  _ mandokarla _ as her  _ buir _ . He would have to ask Jango what the status on those plans were.

“How about we move this inside? I for one would love to hear more about what you two were up to.” Maris Rau, one of the more senior  _ verde  _ of the  _ Haat Mando'ade _ put in, and Myles couldn’t help but wince at the chiding look she was directing at Shouta. Yeah, Maris hadn’t been impressed at all with the disappearing act he had pulled. She was one of Jaster's inner circle, and thus had been privy to their  _ 'Alor's  _ rising anxiety over his wellbeing. She wouldn’t take it out on Yumu, but Shouta was definitely fair game. Shouta stared back evenly, no remorse apparent whatsoever, but he nodded, and the group moved to enter the compound.

Myles and Jango took up the rear, and he took the chance to study Yumu a bit more without Shouta’s eyes on him. She stuck close to her  _ buir _ , but was looking around with obvious interest, taking in the hall decorations and furnishings. It was endearing how she matched Shouta’s style of dress, from the everpresent scarf and jumpsuit, to the braids she sported matching Shouta’s single one. It was a new look on him, and he wondered if Yumu had been the one to request it.

“So, what’s the story with them?” He murmured, knowing Jango would hear.

“For one, she’s not a new Foundling. They were separated before he and Jaster met, and she just found him last year. They’re from the same planet, actually.”

“What, so they were separated when she was just a baby?”

“Not clear on that. She’s still learning Basic, so I don’t think I got the whole story.” Jango seemed just as confused as he was, so at least Myles wasn’t the only one.

“That explains the accent. But damn, that sounds rough. No wonder Shouta went quiet.” Jango hummed in agreement, then continued.

“I also don’t think they’re standard Human. From what I got, they might age slower than baseline, and she confirmed that there were biology differences on her home planet. I think Shouta told  _ buir _ more though.” He paused, and then grimaced. “I don’t want people bothering Yumu. Let them hound Shouta.”

Myles resigned himself to playing buffer for the little Aizawa, but he probably would have done so anyway. With a language barrier, and being a kid, she didn’t deserve the craziness that came from a horde of curious  _ Mando’ade. _

“Will do, Jango.” He glanced back up to find Yumu glancing back at them, and wondered if she could tell she was the subject of their conversation. He smiled and nodded, and she raised an eyebrow back, before turning back to whatever conversation Shouta was having with Maris. The Togruta seemed marginally more relaxed, wasn’t bristling as much as she had been back on the landing platform, so Myles assumed she wasn’t going to chew him out in front of the kid, like she undoubtedly would have if Shouta had come alone. She tried to keep such things from the  _ ade _ , even if it was their  _ buire  _ she was having an issue with.

They reached a fork in the halls, and most of the  _ verde _ split off from them, returning to their duties, leaving just Maris, Jango and himself to escort Shouta and Yumu. All of those departing gave Yumu a little salute, which made the  _ ad _ stand a little straighter, turning Myles’ heart to mush.

By the  _ ka’ra _ , she was precious. Just as self-possessed as her  _ buir _ , but not as hardened, not as closed off.

He hoped that Shouta would stick around for once. It would be good for all of them, and he didn’t want to think of Shouta and Yumu going off on their own without backup. Jango was clearly attached, and a stressed out Jango worrying about someone he liked was not easy to deal with. Plus, she was  _ tiny, _ and Shouta had taken it upon himself to give the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ heart attacks once a month.

“Alright then, do you want to get yourselves settled in, or go see  _ ‘Alor _ ?” Maris asked, directing the question at Shouta, but obviously looking at Yumu.

“I want to see Jas-ter,” she stated firmly, and  _ ka’ra, _ the way she pronounced his name was  _ adorable, _ Myles was going to  _ die. _

“Jaster needs to  _ rest, _ Yumu, and we can’t stay long. Owara seru shigoto ga arimasu ,” Shouta said, and a silence fell as everyone realized Shouta was  _ actually speaking his native language. _ Myles had been taken in as a foundling at five years old, before Shouta even appeared, and he had never  _ once _ heard him speak his native language. Maris stared, and Yumu turned big, serious eyes on her  _ buir _ with  _ deadly _ intent.

“Anata wa Jas-ter o kanashima semasu ,” she stated, and Shouta grimaced as a tense silence spread out while everyone was wondering just what they were arguing about.

“Sōsa suru no o yame nasai ,” he said, and she crinkled up her nose.

“Kantan ni sōsa sa reru no o yamemasu ,” she shot back, and he huffed before turning to Maris.

“We can get settled in.  _ For a few days, _ ” he added, more for Yumu’s benefit, and the  _ tiniest _ hint of smugness flickered across her face. A small hand wrapped around the trailing end of his scarf, and Myles zeroed in on it like a homing beacon. Now that wouldn’t do. He was willing to bet she had been attached to him at the hip for the last year, probably homeschooled, and the thought of Shouta building an education module was anxiety inducing at best. The man only knew how to beat the hell out of people and be vaguely intimidating. No, she probably had  _ no _ access to kids her age, and Myles was going to correct that.

“Your  _ buir _ still smells like blood and needs a shower,” he decided. “Come on. The kids are sparring in the training salles. Let’s get you out of your  _ buir’s _ hair for a bit, yeah?”

Yumu paused, mouthing the words, and Myles realized he was probably speaking too fast for her to keep up.

“Yumu. Do you want to meet the other  _ ade _ ?” Jango asked, because of course Jango would back him up, wonderful Jango, and Shouta looked between the cluster of Mandalorians, looking vaguely flustered, like he wanted to say no. Myles was  _ not _ having any of that. Damn parents. He probably hadn’t had a break from her in a solid year, and that was just not healthy.

Yumu curled in a little on Shouta, and  _ there _ was the missing anxiety. Myles knew she couldn’t just be bold confidence.

“They’re sparring,” Jango teased, and she perked up ever so slightly. Of course she couldn’t handle complex structures, but she knew  _ sparring. _ Definitely Shouta’s kid.

“I can fight?” She asked with a gleam in her eye, and Shouta pursed his lips, looking vaguely unhappy.

“I need to speak to you alone, Shouta,” Maris said bluntly, and now he was being ganged up on all points. Shouta wavered, and Yumu let go of his scarf.

“You be adult with con-se-quences, I will be child,” she said firmly to him, and Myles bit back a laugh. Yeah, she could  _ tell _ Maris was itching to rip into Shouta. And vaguely approving. He’d never seen  _ anyone _ mouth off to him like she had multiple times in the past five minutes. A pat on his side, and Shouta finally relented.

“You keep your  _ eye _ on her, Jango,” he said, mustering all of that intimidation that was now falling flat in the face of the knowledge that a good pair of tooka eyes could make him crack.

“She’ll be in better shape than you will be,” Jango replied as he put a possessive hand in the small of her back and steered her away. “See ya, Shouta.”

“I’ll keep an eye on Jango,” Myles promised, because he wanted to be far away from Maris’s disapproval as physically possible. Her quiet disappointment was actually bone chilling. Not that something like that could possibly bother Shouta, but Myles was a sensitive sort.

And, with that, he was fully and completely abandoning Shouta to her mercies, booking it down the hallway. He had a feeling Yumu was going to make someone cry, and he wanted to record it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Yumu was absolutely fucking mouthing off, and Jango was living for it. It was high time Shouta got called on his shit.
> 
> Translations
> 
> Owara seru shigoto ga arimasu: I have a job to finish
> 
> Anata wa Jas-ter o kanashima semasu: You will make Jaster sad.
> 
> Sōsa suru no o yame nasai: Stop being manipulative.
> 
> Kantan ni sōsa sa reru no o yamemasu: Stop being easily manipulated.


	9. Chapter 9

A small part of Maris softened involuntarily at the sight of Shouta looking a bit bereft as his _ad_ left his sight, but she ignored that part. As cute as it was that Shouta was apparently as devoted a _buir_ as Jaster, that still didn't excuse the fact that he'd fucked up.

"Let's go somewhere private, then you can see _'Alor_ and retrieve your kid." Shouta looked back at her, and slumped.

So he knew he'd fucked up. Knew it, and came anyway. She had to appreciate the guts to do that.

They found a small meeting room further down the hall, and then she was able to say what she wouldn't in front of the kids.

"What the ever loving fuck were you thinking Shouta?! Do you know how worried we were? How worried Jaster was? We were beginning to think you were dead!" She snarled, all of the pent up fury and fear finally being released at the right target. She loomed over him, and it almost made her more furious that he didn't look the least cowed. Almost, but that had always been one of the things she liked about him, and had gained him the approval of most of the _Mando'ade_ he'd met.

After all, if one was to become the _riduur_ of the _Mand’Alor_ , then one had to have a spine of beskar.

And Shouta had that. He didn't let anyone walk over him, had given those who tried a long-lasting and painful lesson on the importance of not underestimating their opponent, and was a favoured sparring partner amongst more than a few of the _verde_.

Hell, he had even taught her a few things, and she was one of the better fighters of the _Haat_ _Mando’ade_.

Of course, it wasn’t just his beskar spine that had endeared him to them. It was the way Jaster always brightened up when he dropped by, the multiple times Shouta had gone out of his way to drag their reckless idiot of a leader out of trouble, how Jaster seemed to be inspired by him. It was the way he interacted with Jango and the other _ade_ who crowded around him, gruff but patient, giving firm but gentle correction when needed, never seeming put off by them.

The man was brimming with _mandokarla_ , and Maris was so tired of watching him run away from them. Him dropping off the map for the last year had dried up the last of her patience with his skittishness. So, she was going to let him have it.

It didn’t help that she was a bit hurt herself. She considered Shouta a friend. Did he not consider her one of his?

“Yumu was more important,” he said, and wasn’t that just like him, to completely miss the point and try to deflect.

“Of course she’s important! We all understand that! That’s not the problem, you karking laser brain!” His eyes widened a bit, the only hint that she had taken him off guard.

She really was going to have to spell this out for him, wasn’t she? Well, being blunt was her preference anyhow.

“Then what--”

“WE WERE WORRIED!” she shouted, and the twitch he immediately stifled was one of surprise, and that hurt, but she pushed it down.

"None of us knew if you were okay, if you needed help, if you were still alive…" She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "You didn't have to go dark if you didn't want us around Yumu--"

"That's not why,” he cut her off, and now he looked visibly shaken, and maybe she was mistaken, but there might have even been a bit of regret in his eyes.

She fell silent, and let him collect his thoughts.

"I wish Yumu had grown up with the _Haat Mando'ade._ But she didn't, and what she went through, when I wasn't there---" His voice cracked, and Maris could only stare. Shouta never showed vulnerability, not to anyone but Jaster, and that was her guessing.

She had shaken him.

No.

He had been shaken since he decided to go drag Jaster's ass out of danger and revealed his _ad_.

"If I had brought her here immediately after I got her back, she would have been scared. She would have been scared, and overwhelmed, and it wouldn't be anyone's fault, but she wouldn't be able to handle it, and neither would I. And I--" He ducked his head slightly, and Maris distantly recognized the movement that would normally have made his hair fall forward, hiding his face, if he hadn't been wearing it in a braid.

“I had to focus on her, and everytime I thought about comming you, comming Jaster, it just… it felt too big. And she needed everything I could give. I couldn't… She _needed_ me, and I couldn't have a second where I wasn't… Wasn't all about _her…_ So, I…”

Shouta cut himself off, a rare show of anything resembling vulnerability, and she had the brief urge to hit him upside the head. Not because she didn't understand. It was clear from his broken speech that he knew for a _fact_ that if he fell apart, let himself be vulnerable with someone other than her, he wouldn't be able to pull it back together with the speed needed of a _buir._ So she _did_ understand, and that was about the only thing that kept her from smacking him. Well, and also because contrary to popular belief, Mandalorians were only _violent_ in sparring and fighting. They didn’t kick someone who was already down.

It wasn't an apology. She probably wouldn't get one. It was at least an explanation, if a heartbreaking one, and he had come back to them in the end, saving Jaster yet again. And he had brought Yumu. If he truly hadn't wanted them around her, Maris had no doubt they'd already be back on that tin can Shouta called a ship and halfway out of the sector.

And Yumu was precious.

Maris had no doubt Jaster had already forgiven the idiot. Now, they just had to keep Shouta and Yumu here, and maybe something would finally come of it.

The betting pool could finally be settled.

She was still pissed at him, though, and gave him her stoniest glare, before rolling her eyes and sighing.

“Just comm us to give us a sign of life next time. I swear, you've given Jaster more grey hair this last year than in the ten you've known each other.”

Shouta eyed her, more uncertain that she'd ever seen him show, ever, and then seemed to relax into his normal stoic mien.

"Have to keep him on his toes somehow," he muttered, and Maris rolled her eyes again.

Jaster was so damned smart, so why did he _insist_ on falling for _di’kute?_

"Let's go make sure he hasn't escaped the medics. He's still an idiot about staying still." She left the room, and he followed, just as she knew he would.

Sooner or later, Shouta always returned to Jaster.

She'd just have to continue to make sure that happened.

* * *

It had been a relief to escape Maris to check on Jaster. The older warrior had caught him off guard, and he wanted space to think about her words. Which he would, but later. Now, he wanted to make sure his friend was as alright as he'd seemed. Thankfully, like he thought, the medics had cleared him, if only for the lightest of duties, but had seemed satisfied with his care. So of course, Jaster had decided, after the poking and prodding was done, that Shouta needed to shower, get checked over by Veli and had then invited himself to go with Shouta to make sure Yumu hadn't gotten herself into too much trouble.

Shouta didn't bother trying to dissuade him. He'd make sure the idiot sat down before he fell over.

“She's probably already winning them over with tales of heroism and bravery,” Jaster drawled, and normally Shouta would say something mocking, something that would make Jaster bark out a laugh, but worry strangled his tongue.

He wanted to rush, to get there before the cruel words started, before the cutting isolation started to set in, before she was collectively labeled as the outsider. But somehow he kept his pace slow enough for Jaster to keep up, his mind racing through all of the ways this could hurt Yumu.

He was probably overreacting. He had met most of the kids who lived at the compound. They were good kids for the most part, but he knew from experience how they could be cruel without truly realizing what they were doing. And for all Shouta seemed to have made a good impression, he and Yumu were not Mandalorian. And that made them outsiders.

After what seemed like hours, but was more like minutes, they reached the training salles. Gleeful laughs and young voices floated out the partially open door, and Shouta went over, and slipped inside. And stopped dead, not quite able to believe his eyes.

There had to be at least a dozen kids, all around Yumu’s age, more than a few species mixed in, and they were all seated watching Yumu act something out, absolutely enthralled.

“--and then he say, 'It was a logical ruse’,” and her voice dropped in an impressive mimic of his own voice, and Shouta could hear the stifled snort of laughter behind him perfectly well.

Well, there goes the intimidating persona he’d managed to build.

“Well, that’s the best impression of you I’ve ever heard, Shouta.” Shouta didn’t have to be looking at Jaster to know there was a shit-eating grin on his face. Shouta sighed.

Oh, well. At least Yumu seemed to be having fun.

Myles and Jango spotted them from where they’d stationed themselves near the door, and came over quietly, not disturbing any of the kids. There were matching grins on their faces, with Myles almost vibrating with glee.

“Shouta, your kid is hysterical. She put Uno through the wall and now they’re all obsessed with her. Please tell me you’re sticking around!” The teen was almost gushing, and Shouta was not entirely sure how to react.

He knew Yumu was a great kid. But for other kids to take to her so well, with no fear or hesitance, no trying to pick a fight with the outsider…well, besides whatever had made Yumu punt a kid through a wall, but that could be considered bonding time for most Mandalorians.

Well, Shouta had not expected this. He’d obviously not given the children of the _Haat Mando’ade_ nearly enough credit. Maybe…

“He is.” Jaster clapped his hand on Shouta’s shoulder, grip strong despite the fact that he should be resting, not walking around.

“Jas--”

“Please, Shouta.” That stopped whatever protest he’d been trying to form. Even when Jaster had been hounding him about wearing armour, trying to persuade him to join the _Haat Mando’ade_ , being all sorts of maddening to get him to take backup, he’d never actually tried to stop him from leaving. He’d never pleaded with him to just stay.

He looked back at the kids. Yumu was talking, chattering almost, and he’d never seen her that animated around kids her own age. Public school had always been a bit of an ordeal, and what little she’d told him about the three years without him sent chills down his spine and sparked rage in his heart. In their old life, Shouta had been holding out hope that UA would be to her what it had been to him. A chance to meet lifelong friends who wouldn’t judge her for her quirk. He hadn’t held out much hope for that happening before UA. Here, there was no UA, but…

Maybe, this could be her chance to find those friends. They’d needed the last year to bond, to heal, to let her find her feet. Honestly, they still needed time. But maybe...maybe…

He couldn’t take this chance from her without giving it a try.

“I…”

Yumu was smiling. All he had ever wanted to do was make his little girl smile.

“Okay.” Myles let out a whoop, and that got the kids’ attention. Once they saw who the intruders were, there was a mass rush, Yumu reaching Shouta first, and he could see, more than just the bright smile on her face, the pure joy that lit up her eyes.

That settled it. They would stick around for a bit, and see where this led. He looked over his shoulder at Jaster, who was fielding a few kids’ questions of his own. His friend met his eyes over the kids’ heads, and there was something in the _Mand’alor’s_ smile that made his heart skip a beat.

Oh.

Oh, no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Best way to get along with Mandos is apparently to get into a fight lol. Now, to deal with Montross.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for those of you familiar with Montross's character from the comics, here is where Shouta's presence has changed some of the characters besides Jaster. Some motivations have changed.

It had been a full day after Jaster had made it home to Concord Dawn, and he was already sick of being treated like an invalid. So it was a relief to do something productive, even if it was just observing Montross’ interrogation through a monitor in the security room. Even if Maris had decided to glue herself to his side to make sure he didn’t overdo it.

“So, how did you manage to get your man to stick around? I thought we were going to have to tie him down and get his _ad_ to use her tooka eyes on him.” Jaster sighed, and gave Maris the stink eye. She just smirked at him. Maris respected him as _Mand'alor_ , but that didn't stop her from teasing him about his personal life.

“I asked. Nicely,” he replied, and blatantly turned his focus on the surveillance screen showing Montross in his cell.

The _verde_ who had detained him had stripped Montross of his armor, leaving him in just his _kute._ Jaster appreciated the fact that they had restrained themselves from roughing him up too much. A few bruises here and there, and someone had likely punched him in the face to lead to the freshly broken nose and black eyes, but nothing that would leave the man incoherent or in need of medical attention.

So considerate, his _verde._

“Nicely. Right.” Jaster felt no shame in rolling his eyes, making Maris snicker. Maris had been with the _Haat Mando’ade_ nearly from the start, so that gave her more leeway than most. It helped that she never teased him out of malice. 

"So, what's Shouta up to? Did he say why he wanted to take point on Montross?" The Togruta asked, dropping the teasing. She didn't seem offended that Jaster had allowed Shouta to do so, to his relief. Simply curious.

“Shouta was the one to uncover his treachery, and wanted to see if he could find out more to corroborate the info he's got,” Jaster explained, and then tried not to pout. “He also doesn't want me there until I'm fully recovered, damned mother hen…”

“A good decision. You almost died. Let us do some of the heavy lifting,” Maris said, gripping his shoulder. He'd scared her, Jaster realized.

Well, there goes any chance of losing his minder for the next while. Maris was one of his best, on and off the field, but one of her lesser known qualities was how protective she was of her friends.

Much like Shouta, actually.

Speaking of him, Jaster straightened up when Shouta entered the brig, and came into view on the camera. Montross got to his feet, and lumbered over, already puffing himself up to try and loom.

It didn't have the effect he was probably hoping for, as Shouta still had a couple inches on him, even slouched as he was. In response, Shouta merely leaned against one of the support pillars, just a foot or two from the containment field, already the picture of unimpressed boredom.

He'd taken his hair out of the braid, Jaster noted, and wondered why.

"Long time no see, Montross. Enjoying your new accommodations?" Shouta drawled, and the audio was good enough quality to pick up the mocking tone.

"Jaster too much of a _hut'uun_ to see me himself, he had to send his _aruetii_ pet? Pathetic," Montross sneered, leaning forward, fists clenched at his sides.

_Aruetii?_ Maris hissed, fangs showing, and Jaster nearly growled in outrage.

He was talking about Shouta? Shouta, who had more _mandokarla_ in one finger than many born Mandos had in their entire bodies? Shouta, who even if he had yet to swear the _Resol’nare_ , was still considered by most of the _Haat Mando’ade_ as one of their own? Montross was calling Shouta an _aruetii_?!

"Why would Jaster waste his time talking to you?" Shouta said dismissively, not denying the term, and Jaster was going to talk to him about that.

After.

“Waste his- Fuck you!” Montross snarled, and if anything, Shouta seemed to slouch even more.

“I’d rather kiss a rathtar.” Jaster snorted, and Maris let out a surprised cackle. Always quick with a witty retort, that was Shouta. It had always annoyed Montross, that Shouta could talk in circles around people, always mouthing off when he deigned to speak.

Jaster wasn’t surprised that Shouta was using that.

“But I’m not here to judge your manners, or lack thereof. That ship’s sailed. What I want to know is why.” Shouta pushed himself off the pillar, and straightened up, and even though Jaster wasn’t in the room, he could almost feel the air of menace. Montross certainly did, when he jerked back, and then leaned forward as if to make up for the flinch.

“Jaster used to be someone worth following. Then you kept showing up, a kriffing parasite, making him weak, making him soft. And then he got that brat, always clinging to his shadow, _hut’unn_ brat. If nothing changed, he was going to drag the _Haat Mando’ade_ down with him. I was doing what needed to be done!”

“Rude and delusional, noted,” Shouta drawled, and the lack of reaction to the insult clearly got to Montross, as he stepped forward as if to try and barge through the containment field.

“So fucking high and mighty, aren’t you? All you are is a mongrel who keeps coming back for whatever scraps of attention you can get, you fucking--” As if Montross hadn’t said a word, Shouta spoke over him.

“If Jaster had been killed, did you really think you’d be made _Mand’alor_? I know more than a few people who would have had objections to that.” His voice was mild, like he was discussing the weather, but the edge to it sounded more threatening than if he shouted. It was good timing, otherwise Jaster would have been tempted to intervene himself to cut off the stream of filth Montross was spewing. How Shouta was completely ignoring it was something else, but it helped keep Jaster seated.

“What, like you? Jaster’s brat? An _aruetii_ and a fucking child? The _Haat Mando’ade_ needs a True Mando to lead them. Someone who was born and raised to fight, not coddled!” Jaster grimaced. That sounded more than a little like what a Death Watch fanatic would say.

“You obviously don’t know your fellows as well as you think you do. Then again, you might be confusing them with your friends in Death Watch.” He still sounded completely calm. Jaster couldn’t help but think of a nexu, circling in for the kill. Maris was cocking her head, enthralled.

“What are you on about-” Shouta cut him off with a raised hand.

“It’s interesting what you find, picking up bounties. Very interesting, especially when the target doesn’t wipe their comms often enough. I imagine you’re familiar with the last bounty I delivered. Karos Saxon had quite a few saved transmissions on his pad.” Shouta let his eyes slide halfway shut, and his mouth spread wide, showing far too many teeth for most people’s comfort. “Imagine my surprise when I saw that I recognized the comm frequency.”

Karos Saxon. One of Death Watch’s known slicers, who had managed to get a bounty put on him by a rich business tycoon for collateral damage the slicer had been responsible for. Shouta must have just nabbed him for Jaster not to have heard about his capture.

Jaster had the sinking feeling that Montross’s betrayal had not been a one time occurrence.

“And what of it?” Montross blustered, but something about Shouta’s words, or maybe just the look on his face was making him look far less assured of himself.

“Well, it’s just interesting that you say you wanted to steal Jaster’s title, but have been chatting quite a bit with the enemies of the _Haat Mando’ade_. And for quite a while, too.” Shouta tilted his head, letting his hair fall forward, casting his face into shadow, but still with that unnerving toothy grin.

Jaster wondered if Yumu was able to mimic the grin as well as she had been able to do his voice.

“So, what were you promised? Get Jaster out of the way, for what? Money? A place in the new order?” Shouta stepped forward, until only bare inches and the containment field separated the two. Montross was actually leaning back, though whether the man was aware of it was anyone’s guess.

“Shouta knows exactly how to play him, doesn’t he?” Maris was nearly pressing her nose to the monitor, she was so enthralled. It was very clear who the predator in the room was. And the wide snarling grin on Maris’s face made it clear that she knew it too.

“He’s good at knowing how to piss people off,” Jaster corrected, and that trait had been the cause of more than a few heart stopping incidents.

There were a few moments of silence between them, and then Shouta broke it.

“Or were you stupid enough to really think you could win it all, and beat Death Watch too?” The grin dropped, and there was now nothing but contempt in the words, and Jaster could almost hear Montross snap.

“I was smart enough to fool you! Your precious Jaster made me his second, and you never even suspected,” Montross spat at Shouta, but the spittle didn’t make it past the containment field. Shouta didn’t even twitch.

“If Jaster wasn’t so fucking cautious, always concerned with ‘collateral damage’, we would have won by now, and Mandalore would be ours!” Montross ranted, and Jaster couldn’t help but feel a bit sick. Montross had never truly believed in the Codex, had he? No, he’d paid lip service to it, just enough to satisfy those watching, and now Jaster would have to wonder how many unnecessary deaths there had been. How many people, how many innocents had been a part of the ‘collateral damage’ Montross so easily dismissed?

Had Montross been like this all this time? Had the man Jaster had trusted, had called _vod_ even existed at all? What else had Jaster missed?

“And yet, here we are.” Shouta was quiet again, but the words cut through Montross’s filth like a knife.

“Here we are, Montross. You failed. You’ve lost. Jaster lives, Death Watch failed and you have gained nothing.” Shouta turned around and stepped away.

“What a fucking waste of space you turned out to be.” And as Shouta reached the door, Montross found the words to yell back.

“You’ll get yours! Sooner or later, you’ll be left behind just like you did with Jaster, and then we’ll see who lost!”

Most people wouldn’t be able to see any visible indicators that Shouta had heard Montross’s last ditch effort to shake him, to hurt him, but Jaster was one of the few people who could claim to know Shouta well.

And so while Maris merely laughed at the pathetic last words, Jaster saw the minute tightening of those broad shoulders, the almost indiscernible pause before Shouta left the brig.

And he knew, despite Shouta’s indifference to Montross’ earlier words, that the traitor had managed to score a hit.

May the bastard burn in _haran._

* * *

The documents Shouta had given them had been damning. Jaster could have sworn the man was a private detective in a past life. Granted, that was the same thing as a bounty hunter, but Shouta was _unnervingly_ good at digging up secrets. All the same…

Jaster had wanted to exile him. He wanted to, and wanted it desperately. They didn’t kill unarmed people as a rule, but there were exceptions for _aurstii_ like Montross. For all of his derision of Shouta for having not sworn the _Resol’nare,_ he had really gone above and beyond to earn that singular ‘s’ in the word. It was… too much. _Haat Mando’ade_ dead because of him, non Mandalorians, even _ade._ He’d been working with Death Watch for a while, and it was sickening to see evidence that they even knew about Jango’s lethal radiik shellfish allergy. Not even all of the _Haat Mando’ade_ knew about that.

Montross hadn’t solely been gunning for Jaster. Jango was considered of age, but he was still an _ad,_ still needed guidance, and there were contingency plans for _assassinating_ him. The death total from Montross’s actions was in the dozens, and he had been planning to make a move against Jaster’s heir, who he _owed_ his allegiance to. The very fact that he had been pissed that Jango was a _child_ was mind-boggling to Jaster. He was only in his early thirties. Jango wasn’t even _meant_ to inherit the title until he was in his twenties at the earliest, like Jaster had. The whole thing was…

Letting Montross loose would only spell death, for too many people. Jaster knew that, and looking at the numbers…

This had happened on _his_ watch. Sentiment was very much not a factor here. He couldn’t be sentimental, and he had to correct it.

And beyond that… As _Mand’alor,_ even letting an insult that he had paid to his intended _riduur_ stand would have consequences. Mandalorians took that sort of thing very seriously, and while only Maris had heard it… Jaster had his principles, and he had to live by them. People had been killed in the past by those in his position for far less. To insinuate the _Mand’alor_ was honorless for a choice in a life partner that all of his followers had _approved_ of, well…

It was an insult to the whole of the _Haat Mando’ade._ Being the _Mand’alor_ was being bigger than yourself. There was a reason their leader was named after their home.

Jaster couldn’t let it stand. Especially from an _arustii._

But he didn’t want to do this in public. He _couldn’t_ do this in public. They weren’t barbarians, for one, and for two…

He could be weak, just this once. Montross hadn’t been just a _verde._ He was Jaster’s chosen _vod._ The family he made, and the family that had turned on him. He was a lot more than a second in command. As long as it was done, it was enough.

Even so, he disliked having to sneak through his own _compound_ like this, in the dead of the night, when prying eyes fretting over his health were asleep. Shouta and Yumu, with a quick inspection, were still safely bunked down in their rooms, and Jango was sprawled over his bed with all of the cockiness of a teenager. Maris was probably up reading, and Silas and Myles had snuck off together like no one would notice. The clan leaders were all in bed, and the grunts on duty were too nervous to say anything. Or, they knew exactly what Jaster was going to do, and were turning a blind eye.

He wasn’t going to think about that.

The holding cells were silent. Montross was the only one in these rooms, and they were rarely used. Bounties were not brought back to the compound except in rare circumstances, because they had _ade_ who weren’t ready to be exposed to such things.

Montross wasn’t sleeping. He was sitting upright on the cot, back to the wall, staring at the door when Jaster entered. Jaster didn’t think about how Montross knew he was coming, didn’t think about how Montross had sat and waited for the man who had once called him _vod_ to come kill him for what he had done.

Jaster had never really relished death. It was a part of his existence, a complex thing he had made peace with it, because he was a Mandalorian at his core, and Mandalorians loved life because they knew what it was like to watch it slip away.

He wasn’t going to enjoy this one, but he was going to remember it.

Silently, he took a seat, ignoring the pull in his side, the quiet ache that was still there even as his body healed, slow and rough. Montross stared at him with those quiet eyes that had always gleamed with intelligence, in Jaster’s rose-colored vision. How had he never noticed the malice swimming in their depths? Or did he, and chose to ignore it?

This was his failure, just as much as it was Montross’s.

Silence passed for a few minutes, and his blaster hung like a heavy weight at his hip, weighing him down with a taunt, a tease.

_‘Was this what you wanted?’_

He’d only wanted to bring hope to his people.

He’d only wanted to tell them there was another way. He hadn’t demanded loyalty, or fealty to him as an idea, but to a future where they could be _better_ than what they were. A future where they didn’t tear each other apart in search of violence instead of a reason to live.

And now it had led here. More violence, for the sake of violence, and Montross was sitting there, breaking what little heart Jaster had left.

He was going to remember this, and he dearly didn’t want to.

“Did I ever tell you how I met him?” He asked quietly, because he hadn’t. No one knew how Jaster met him. He’d just always been there, and not once had anyone questioned his place at his side.

“Your _aruetii_?” Montross sneered, and Jaster didn’t rise to the bait. He was a teacher at heart, teaching his people. It was a heavy mantle that had grown into something so much bigger than he thought it would be, and he had done his best to bear it with dignity, but he was reaching the end of his rope.

“I was still a Journeyman Protector,” he continued, calm and soft. “He came into a cantina, knocked a Zabrak twice his size down on his _shebs_ with nothing but cloth and spite. Planted his foot in his back like he belonged there, and in an instant, I wanted him to belong with me.”

Meeting Shouta had been like meeting a typhoon. Jaster had been swept up in the glory of it, never seen anyone else, not even for a moment. It was only ever Shouta.

“I noticed how young he was, but it didn’t sink in until that night, after he was already gone. When you meet someone like that, sometimes… All you can think about is what someone like that dreams about.”

He’d wondered. Shouta had never fully faded from Jaster’s mind. He made his heart pound, his mouth go dry, his mind wander with wistful thoughts for a future he thought he could never have, and he wasn’t going to allow Montross’s cruel words ruin the hope that had been rekindled in his chest.

“So he can throw his weight around,” Montross drawled. “Thought you thought the galaxy had too many people that could throw their weight around.”

“You know what he dreamed about?” Jaster asked softly, and Montross’s eyes hardened.

“Ruining you, probably.” Jaster didn’t rise to that bait, either.

“He showed up with a girl, on Korda-6. She blew your new friends sky high. She’s eleven, she can barely speak Basic, and she hasn’t seen him since she was small,” Jaster continued, still steadfastly refusing to rise to the bait. “A man like that dreams about a dream he thought he could never have again. A man like that punishes himself for a decade until someone shows up and tells him he’s worth fighting for, and then he fights like hell even when he shouldn’t to prove them right. Not because he thinks he’s worth something, but because he will be damned if he lets his _ad_ down.”

Jaster didn’t realize the connections he had made in the statement. Didn’t know the meaning of a name like Yumemu, a ship called Musō-ka, didn’t realize what Yumu was, what Shouta was. He had no idea what the full scope of Shouta’s longing was, what his silent torture was, but Jaster was a man that saw patterns without realizing he saw them, made connections without a thought, walked away before they fully processed. They lurked in the back of his mind, ready to be coaxed out at a moment’s notice, but he was a man who accepted things as they were. And what they were now was that Shouta was back, and he was happy, and his dark circles were less pronounced, the lines of his cheeks softer, the smile just ever-so-slightly more easy, and that was what mattered.

Montross was silent. He didn’t even know, and bless the damned guards for not saying a word. He’d spent long enough around Jaster that he understood what Jaster was going to say before he said it.

“Thirteen,” Jaster whispered. “Thirteen _ade_ dead because of you. For all you want to talk about power and might, you still don’t understand why those are important to Mandalorians. What they mean, what they’re there for. And you’ve got the nerve to say he’s not enough for me. Not good enough for our people. He tortured himself for _nine years_ because he failed one, isolated himself when he needed _help_ for another because she needed him _more,_ and you didn’t feel a shred of regret for killing over a dozen.”

His hand reached for the blaster at his waist, hesitant, slow. He was _forcing_ his muscles to move, to wrap around the hilt, pull it out, test the weight and wonder when it got so heavy.

Blasters had always felt like an extension of his arm. His body, his _soul._ Had since he was a child running through the fields.

Why did they not fit anymore?

“I’m going to marry him, Montross,” he said, his voice cracking. “I wanted you there.”

There was something wet gathering in the lines of his eyes, and he lifted his blaster like he was pushing up through water, forcing the waves to bend to his will. It shook, for just a moment, and then it stilled. The containment allowed blaster bolts to enter, but not exit. He tried to remember that, focused on that, wondered if they should change the model.

A flash of light, a ringing shot, and a body hit the ground.

He hadn’t even fought it.

Jaster didn’t know if it made it better or worse.

Silently, he stood up, ignored his aching side, ignored how the hilt seemed to burn through his glove as he holstered it.

He didn’t look back.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter made people cry, so here's a chapter with some fluff!

Jaster was nowhere to be found at breakfast the next morning, which immediately tipped Shouta off that something was wrong. Instead, Maris sat next to him and Yumu, and the grimly satisfied look on her face told him that it was likely to do with Montross.

He was right.

Maris quietly informed him of what Jaster had decided to do with Montross, and Shouta was relieved that he had decided to stay longer than the handful of days he’d previously planned on. He wasn’t surprised at the sentence. He wished Jaster hadn’t had to do it, but he wasn’t surprised.

Shouta had distantly known that he was signing Montross’s death warrant when he’d handed over the info he had pried from Karos Saxon’s systems. Had known, because even though Jaster had been close to Montross, had trusted him fully, there were some things his friend could never forgive. 

Jaster cherished the lives of all children, be they Mandalorian or not. It was clear in the way he treated Jango, the way he was already indulging Yumu, how the safety of the children at the compound was always a priority. Shouta had seen him buy candy for local kids on missions when he had the opportunity, just to see them smile.

So Shouta had given Jaster all the reason to execute Montross, and in doing so, probably broke his heart. 

Jaster wouldn’t have done anything else. He would never have let sentiment stop him from enacting justice. 

So now he was looking for the idiot before he beat himself up too much for not seeing what Montross was. 

When Shouta wanted to be alone and think, he always went to the highest point of wherever he was staying. Jaster didn’t tend to do that, unless he was looking for Shouta.

No, Shouta went in a different direction. 

The training salles had an observation room set a level up where one could observe classes and drills, as well as keep spectators out of the way of accidental fire. This time of day was often set aside for the children of the _Haat Mando’ade_ , and Yumu had joined them today at their insistence. 

As Shouta expected, Jaster was there, and the room was clear, the other parents giving their leader space after the news of Montross’s execution had spread. He was looking out at the kids just starting to stretch, one of the older warriors leading them, his friend’s face tight and unhappy. 

“It’s not your fault.” Jaster stiffened in his seat, and didn’t look at him. Shouta strode forward and took the seat beside him. Yumu was standing in between a Twi’lek and another Human, and was giving the instructor her full attention. Shouta was glad she was taking advantage of having more teachers.

“It’s my responsibility.” Jaster murmured.

“It is. It doesn’t make it your fault.”

“But I didn’t see it! How could I have not seen it?” Jaster snarled, jolting up from his seat and facing him, fury and self-loathing written in every line of his body. “I made him my second, I trusted him with just about everything! And all this time-” He cut himself off, raking a hand through his hair, causing even more of a snarled mess. 

Shouta wondered if he’d slept since he put Montross down. Probably not. 

“Montross was smart. Only reason I got as much dirt as I did was because Saxon was paranoid and probably was planning on back-stabbing him anyway,” Shouta countered, then sighed. “I didn’t see it either, Jas.”

And that was going to haunt him for a long while. What if he hadn’t gone through Saxon’s gear? What if he hadn’t rushed to Jaster’s next known location, and made it in time to save his dearest friend in this galaxy? A minute later, and it may have been too late.

Jaster just looked at him, and slumped, hands bracing on the back of his vacated seat to hold himself up. 

Shouta looked back at the observation window, and nearly smirked. Yumu was down in the splits, no strain visible whatsoever, and he could see how the others were looking at her in envy. Flexibility training was something they both kept up, and Yumu had the drive to keep up with it even when she left the limber childhood years behind. 

A hoarse chuckle broke the silence.

“She gonna be a contortionist like you? I swear, you two are more flexible than a Mirialan,” Jaster remarked, mouth tugging up at a corner. It was a poor facsimile of his normal smiles, and didn’t touch his eyes at all, but Shouta wasn’t expecting it to. Not only was Jaster still recovering from physical wounds, a grave one had been dealt to him emotionally. It would take a bit for him to bounce back. 

Shouta was fine with him not being back to his normal self immediately. He’d rather Jaster be honest with him. 

“She’s probably not going to grow very tall. Speed and flexibility are good traits to have,” he replied. 

“Always so practical,” Jaster said, and some of the weight on his shoulders seemed to lift. He pulled the chair back out, and sat back down, scooting closer to the window and to Shouta.

“So tell me, what have you been training your _ad_ in? Obviously hand to hand and working with that ridiculous scarf, but the two of you are overachievers, so there’s definitely more.” Jaster teased. Shouta sighed, because that was always his response to Jaster teasing him, but felt a bit lighter himself as he began to describe their training routine.

Jaster would grieve the lives lost because of Montross, and having to kill his chosen brother would likely always hurt, but Jaster was strong. He’d move forward, and use what he had learned to do better, be better. 

Always moving forward, his Jaster.

So, Shouta would stay for a bit and let Jaster lean on him if he needed to. He would make sure Jaster was steady on his feet before he took another job. And he’ll thank the galaxy for allowing him to keep Jaster in his life for a while longer. 

* * *

The last few days had been some of the most amazing and surreal in Yumu’s life, not counting those first weeks after finding her dad. Then, she’d been relishing in being back home, learning what it meant to travel the stars, clinging to her dad, seeing a million things she’d never seen before.

Since landing on Concord Dawn though, Yumu had been through another new experience that she hadn’t really expected. She had tried to get along with her classmates in her old dimension. She’d tried so hard, but as soon as people knew about her Quirk, all her efforts were for nothing. It had been a thousand times worse when she’d lost her dad, and it wasn’t long before she gave up entirely. 

So when Jango and Myles had taken her to meet the other kids, she’d been one part nervous, one part bracing for disappointment, and one tiny, tiny part hopeful. 

No one here knew about Quirks. In the _Haat Mando’ade_ alone, Dad had told her there were at least dozens of species represented, and even those that looked Human were likely to have mixed ancestry. 

As long as she kept her gloves on, she really wasn’t any different from a regular Human. So, maybe… maybe they’d like her? Or at least, give her a chance?

So, she’d gone into the training salles, worried but hopeful. She’d immediately been challenged to a spar after Jango had introduced her as her dad’s kid, and so she’d stepped up.

After she had been a bit overzealous in putting Uno, a stocky Zabrak about her age, through a flimsy wall, she’d been afraid that the others wouldn’t take it well, that one of their own had been beaten by an outsider.

She had been very much mistaken. 

By the time her dad had come to check on her, she was on first name basis with everyone else, had sparred another few times, and been begged to tell stories of the hunts she and her dad had gone on.

She’d never had so much fun with other kids. 

So, Dad agreeing to spend more than a few days at the compound had been a wonderful surprise. And it was also terribly amusing to see Dad get fussed over by multiple beings in armour, clucking like mother hens, and the long suffering look it caused. 

Veli, the head medic, had been one of the more persistent, and had insisted on giving Yumu an exam. It made sense to have a baseline recorded in the system, but she wasn’t sure if she appreciated the slight against her dad’s ability to care for her. Maybe Veli had noted her displeasure, because the woman hadn’t said a single disparaging thing about her physical state, merely asked the standard questions, took some blood for the usual tests, and didn’t try poking at her fingers when she said that it was normal for her. If anything, Veli had seemed relieved when everything had checked out, so maybe she had been a bit uncharitable. 

Maris, the beautiful and tall Togruta who had been distinctly unimpressed with Dad, had also taken an interest in her, in the form of watching her spar with the other kids, and giving her tips. 

She was so cool, and reminded her more than a bit of Aunt Nemuri. Which hurt a bit, but there were enough differences for Yumu to firmly separate the two in her mind. Primarily the montrals, but no one needed to know that.

Another wonderful thing was how highly the _Haat Mando’ade_ regarded her dad. It wasn’t that he’d not had friends back in the other dimension, but besides Hizashi and Nemuri and Tsukauchi, there hadn’t been many willing to be truly friendly with him, as seemingly gruff as he was. Here, few seemed to let that deter them. They liked him, and because of that, delighted in telling Yumu how much she took after him. Which was awesome.

True to his word, Jango was often keeping an eye on her, but it wasn’t too overbearing. She was kind of relieved, to be honest. He had quickly become a friend, even if he was older than her, and they had quickly bonded over their idiot parents. Myles was fun to be around as well, as he also shared their opinion of their parents’ lack of common sense. 

Having partners in crime was fun, and made her job as a worrywart a lot easier.

Which had led to this moment. They’d been at the compound for a week, and Dad and Jaster were already being workaholics. Whatever Dad and Jaster were working on had kept them in Jaster’s office for nearly two days, and it was past time for them to get dragged out to eat more than ration bars. Jango and Myles agreed, and Maris had let them go with a toothy smile, showing off her truly awesome fangs. 

Yumu was really kind of envious of her fangs. Why did her teeth have to be so boring? Couldn’t her Quirk have included pointy teeth? If her Quirk made her scary, then she should have gotten more of the perks of said scariness. Eyes that glowed in the dark did _not_ count. Dad’s eyes glowed and it wasn’t that scary.

“Mission to get idiot dads to eat, sleep and shower begins," she hissed with probably too much venom, but they _were_ being idiots all over again, and Myles let out a cackle, while Jango just smirked. 

“Alright _ad’ika_ , just make sure to protect me from your _buir_ ’s glare of doom. I’ve heard he made someone faint from it a few years ago,” Myles joked, and, after a few moments to parse through what the older teen had said, Yumu snorted. 

“He’s not that scary," she retorted. They had never even seen him activate his Quirk. Pathetic.

“You’re his _ad_ , of course he’s not scary to you. To us mortals invading his work space, he’s plenty scary.” 

Jango sighed, and then entered the code to enter Jaster’s rooms. The door beeped, slid open, and they all strode in, Yumu about to come up with a witty response, when they all stopped dead. She had to resist the urge to squeal at the sight.

The desk was strewn with pads, as well as flimsiwork, cups of caf abandoned and long gone cold. They had dragged another chair behind the desk, probably so they could work side by side, able to see what the other was working on. 

And they were both fast asleep.

Jaster had at some point taken off his upper armour, and was leaning back in his seat, softly snoring. Her dad had, probably in his sleep, slipped in his chair until he was resting his head on Jaster’s shoulder, drooling on the man’s _kute_. 

It couldn’t be comfortable for either of them. They were both going to wake up with cricks in their necks.

She had rarely seen him be so at peace. 

Yumu slowly and carefully brought out her comm, and took as many holos as she could. Beside her, she could see Jango doing the same. Myles still seemed to be frozen in surprise.

“I do not want to wake them, but they will be stiff," she lamented. Dad got little enough sleep as it was, often cat napping when he could. He'd never gotten out of the habit from his body working two brutal jobs for several years. It was ingrained now, and there was no fixing it. She wasn’t sure if it was the same for Jaster, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he was similar. Jango had mentioned Jaster worked too much.

Jango sighed, and put his comm away. He stepped forward, and rapped a gauntlet on the desk. That was enough to jerk both men awake, and Yumu was relieved that Jango seemed well aware that trying to shake her dad awake probably wouldn’t have worked out well for him. 

Dad didn’t always wake up peacefully, and had made sure Yumu knew to wake him from a distance. 

“Wakey, wakey. You two need to eat, shower and get into a proper bed, alright?” Jango ordered, and even though he was only fifteen, Yumu could see the leader in him. Dad had told her that Jango was technically of age for a Mandalorian, but it hadn’t quite sunk in. 

Dad rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue, straightening up with a crack, wiping his mouth clean. Jaster took a moment longer to react, but then chuckled and stretched. They both rose from their seats, and Jaster quickly put his discarded armour back on. 

“Alright, Jango. Don’t set Veli on us.” Jaster wrapped an arm around Dad’s shoulders, and pulled him along with him, and Dad went along with it easily.

Yumu wondered if Jaster knew what a privilege Dad was giving him. It was getting hard to stifle the grin that wanted to surface.

She knew the two of them were close friends from badgering Dad about him. She’d been fairly certain that Dad felt something a bit deeper than friendship, maybe something more like what Dad was like with Hizashi, but…

She hadn’t wanted to push, not on something like that, not without knowing if Dad’s affection was returned.

It obviously was. She’d have to grill Jango more about that, see if he’d be any help with it.

Because Jaster was good for him. As much as her dad played the lone wolf, often working independently both here and in the old dimension, he needed people, both to care for him and for him to care about. 

Plus, she liked the _Mand’alor_. He wasn’t turned off by Dad’s sarcasm, or reserve, didn’t nag on him to smile. He seemed like a good parent to Jango, and it seemed like all the adult Mandos respected him, which was a good sign. 

And, he wanted Dad to take care of himself, which was always a good thing in her opinion.

“We will join you," she said pointedly, and Dad huffed, but his mouth turned up at the corners. Jaster just laughed again, and Yumu finally grinned.

She’d rag on Dad for staying away from the _Haat Mando’ade_ later. For now, she’d enjoy getting to know them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Jango gets a surprise, and Jaster learns a tiny bit more about Shouta's past.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing a new canon character!

The Aizawas had stayed for a month, more than they had ever stayed before. In the aftermath of Montross, Shouta had _known_ his _buir_ needed him, and had been there. Quiet, accepting, and kind in his gruff, angry way. They hadn’t really talked about it, but Jango had known Montross had hurt his _buir_ in a way that he would never fully recover from.

That was okay. Some wounds weren’t meant to heal.

Yumu had gotten along with the kids her age, playing and sparring and laughing. Her and Jango had bonded on a level that had eluded him ever since he lost Arla. Her Basic in that month had improved in leaps and bounds, and by the time she left, the collective _Haat Mando’ade_ had managed to bully her into a set of vambraces. No pauldron, not yet, mostly because it would get caught on the scarf, but there were whispers of a possible swearing to the _Resol’nare_ in the future. She had even picked up some _Mando’a_ while she’d been here.

But the Aizawas were the Aizawas, and Aizawas were a bit like stray tookas, wandering in and out until they finally decided to settle. It had been a good month, but Shouta clearly had a lot to think about, and it had to end. Jango kept in contact with comms, and they dropped by for a few days every so often, but then things just went back to normal. _Buir_ missed Shouta, and Jango could see it all over him, but it wasn’t like the past year, where they had worried he would never come _back._ Shouta commed, they had holo chats, Yumu sent complaints about the schoolwork he was cramming down her throat and why Huttese sentence structure just _had to be like that._ She was shaping up to be a regular polyglot, at least. Maybe it was from having another language no one else knew as her first, but she soaked in languages like a sponge. Jango was a little jealous. _He_ couldn’t speak Bocce, and she was well on her way to understanding Binary.

It was like having competition again, and it felt weirdly good. He was throwing himself into Shyriiwook just to be able to keep up.

But he was worried. Shouta had sent a comm that something happened and they were going dark, and Jaster, Jango, and half of the _Haat Mando’ade_ were out of their minds with worry. Jango was now sixteen, and Yumu had come into his life as a semi-sister a year ago. She was only twelve, and Death Watch had finally picked up interest in “Mereel’s stray tookas”. They’d been ambushed six months ago on a job, and someone had done their damndest to take Yumu out. They had failed, of course, and Shouta hadn’t gone into how bad it was, but Jango knew firsthand how vicious the man could be when it was a _random_ kid. There were rumors three dead Death Watch bodies had been dumped at a safe house no one was supposed to know about, and after that rumor had surfaced, no further attempts were made.

It had been fifteen days since they got that comm, and still nothing. _Buir_ was refraining from calling Shouta, mainly because they didn’t know what kind of _osik_ the man had gotten himself involved in, and Jango was single handedly keeping a volunteer search party from leaving Concord Dawn. They had squads all over the galaxy on contracts, and all of them were keeping an ear to the ground for news. If it went on any longer, though, Maris, who had taken the spot of second, would probably be ignoring Jaster to go handle the situation herself before they had another repeat of Shouta’s disappearing acts.

He really was a stray tooka.

At least he bothered to comm this time, though Jango had a sneaking suspicion Yumu had something to do with that.

In any case, he was going a little stir crazy, training with his Grunts. _Buir_ was considering sending him out on a solo mission with his team to test out his leadership abilities, with Veli the medic and Yanto, an older _Mando’ad_ as advisors, and Jango had thrown all of his nervous energy into making them run drills and organizing a potential hunt. It had been a long day, and Jango was finally stripping out of his soiled _kute,_ ready to throw it in the wash and take a shower, when his comm chimed with a message.

A message belonging to a very specific chain code.

**Yumemu Aizawa:** We’re coming into your sector, having a holding cell ready… please?

**Yumemu Aizawa:** We have a present for you. You, specially. Also. Food.

**Yumemu Aizawa:** She’s less murder-y when there is food. Thank you!

**Yumemu Aizawa:** Also, medic, please!

Jango’s brain blanked at the four successive messages, and then he was bolting out of his bedroom as his heart rate spiked to critical levels. Not even noticing he was barefoot and half out of his _kute,_ he slid around the corner and barreled down the hall to _buir’s_ bedroom.

_“Buir, Shouta and Yumu are coming in! We need a holding cell and food! And a medic!”_ He hollered at the top of his lungs, barely waiting a moment before he slammed open the door to _buir’s_ bedroom and stood there in a general state of upheaval. _Buir_ jumped at his abrupt entrance, and Jango chucked the comm at him before taking off down the hallway for the landing pads. It would take them ten minutes to get to Concord Dawn if they came in through the regular way, and five for Jango to get down there and---

He _wasn’t_ worried. He had _not_ been worried. Not at _all._ It was only fifteen days, right? Shouta had been gone for a full month before, and no one had worried.

Well, there were regular _comms_ for that month, but Jango was _not_ worried, and no, he was simply _curious._ Not disheveled and losing his mind.

The landing pad was just ahead, and _buir_ was following him while everyone’s attention was grabbed by Jango running full pelt through the halls. They needed a _medic,_ what on earth had they gotten up to? Murder-y person? Needing food? Who was hurt? It better not be Yumu. She was a crack shot and a _damned_ good sniper, probably the best backup you could ask for, but she was also _twelve,_ and Shouta shouldn’t be dragging her into his bounty shit. She was supposed to stay on the _ship_ most of the time. Never mind that Jango had his own squad at fourteen; Yumu didn’t even wear full armor. And she was _tiny._ Very tiny, and easily breakable, never mind that he had seen her put Mandalorians three times her size on the ground. She was a _kid._

(No, Jango was not aware that he was _also_ a kid. He had no time for self awareness, even on a good day.)

The ship broke out of the clouds shortly after Jango arrived on the landing platforms and tried to figure out which one they were being sent to without a comm or a helmet interface. The members of their clan had looked at him with amusement as he pelted here and there, not babbling, Jango did _not_ babble, but probably looking a little more stressed than he normally did. They’d been directed to platform 3, their normal pad set aside for them, why he hadn’t thought of that was _beyond_ him, and he barely managed to calm down in time to see the light freighter deploying the landing gear as what looked like the automated sequence landed it. The ramp went down and Jango...

Well. He froze, and you could hardly blame him. There were Yumu and Shouta, capture scarves wrapped securely around a squirming, kicking, _cursing_ woman in Death Watch armor, blonde hair in a mess, looking like she was barely out of her teens.

He knew that face. He knew it nearly as well as his own. Shouta had a grip on a helmet, and was dragging her down the ramp with a fierce determination as Yumu yanked on her with all her might, and Jango for a moment just…

Remembered. And then refused to do so, because Shouta had _Arla,_ Jango’s Arla who was supposed to be _dead,_ and why in the _hell_ was she in Death Watch armor?

Jaster slid up to Jango’s side, and Jango just stared, words running away as Shouta gave up, picked her up by the back of the _kute,_ and dragged her over to leave her in a lump at Jango’s feet. The capture scarves retracted, and Yumu gave Jango a bright, beaming grin.

“They sent her to kill us!” She chirped. “We thought you would be upset if we returned the favor, so we chased her to Nar Shadda and then Tatooine and Dantooine and Lotho Minor, and that was a _mess,_ there was a snake that spoke and we did _not_ appreciate him, but we found her for you!”

“Arla?” Jango asked, his voice breaking, and then his sister, that was his _sister,_ lunged to her feet and _pounced._

* * *

She was eating, at least. She _looked_ like she’d been on Lotho Minor. Dirty and unkempt, with helmet hair and wary, darting, unfocused and refocused eyes that catalogued everything and put it away. Jaster was watching her in silence on the monitors as Yumu cheerfully ate those rice triangles Shouta had made on the other side of the containment field, munching away as she talked to her in quiet tones about the bounties Shouta took her on and the languages she was learning. Arla… Arla Fett seemed fine with it, almost accustomed to her presence.

They’d taken away her armor, left her in her _kute,_ and Jaster was organizing an all-female guard to keep her from bolting and/or dismantling the shower so she could get cleaned up.

“She’s not all there,” Shouta said quietly as Yumu said something in their native language, pointing at the rice triangle Arla seemed to like.

He’d gotten shot in the shoulder blade, had his arm in a sling after Veli had cursed him to hell and back for not comming for backup.

“That’s really Arla?” Jaster asked quietly. Jango was… somewhere, dealing with it all while Yumu kept her company. She’d tried to kill Jaster the second she set eyes on him.

“Ran her biometrics through the database. It’s her,” Shouta confirmed. “She’s… of the opinion that she’s firmly loyal to Death Watch, but it’s pretty obvious that…”

Shouta trailed off, and Arla twitched, her eyes flicking to the cameras like she could _see_ them, before she set down the triangle of rice and leaned in very, very close to the containment field.

“I don’t care about your _schoolwork,_ ” she hissed, which Yumu hadn’t even been _talking_ about, and Yumu paused, tilted her head, and then took a big bite of her rice.

“You should finish your onigiri,” she replied placidly. “You’re hungry. Anyways, _then_ Dad called him illogical, which was _ridiculous,_ if you ask me. I thought his decisions were _very_ logical, but Dad is emotion-ally repressed and doesn’t think they affect your choices. Not _one_ empathy bone in him, Arla. Not a _one._ Tragic. That’s what I’m for.”

“Yumu is good with her,” Jaster said hesitantly, and Shouta sighed, like it was the _worst_ thing.

“She’s good with everyone. She made a bounty cry a month ago, and he killed eight people.”

“Sounds like her,” Jaster said, because while Jango was an excellent tactician and could think with his brain, most of the time, he was still a teenager, Yumu was their _sensitive_ one who knew people. She would probably make a good Armorer, honestly.

Arla seemed mollified. The abrupt threatening aura dissipated, and she picked the onigiri back up, took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and Yumu paused before launching back into her mindless chatter about this and that. Arla didn’t seem inclined to being talkative, but she did lean against the wall ever-so-slightly, her eyes slipping shut for just a second as she let Yumu just talk. There was a twitch, and a coil, and Yumu took it in as she paused, tilting her head in consideration. Arla unwound after a moment, and Yumu picked up right where she left off.

“She missed a shot at Yumu,” Shouta explained. “Before we realized who she was. I thought it was strange that they’d send a single sniper who missed a stationary target, so when I got a cut on her arm during a scuffle, I ran her DNA and came back with her identity, declared deceased. I thought… Well, I know how you found Jango. I figured something happened.”

“She seems unsteady,” Jaster commented, and Shouta went quiet for a minute.

“I’ve been hearing rumors that they’re taking kids. Training them themselves. I haven’t _proved_ anything, but I’ve been digging into it,” he admitted.

“We’ve heard it, too,” Jaster said, and it twisted at him that they _dared_ to claim the title Mandalorian when they were sinking to such lengths to bolster their ranks. Mandalorians were open to training their children from a young age to fight, but there was a right way to do it, and there was a wrong way to do it, and if the rumors were _true…_

They were in a weird ‘not-war’ right now, where it was technically a civil war, but no one was _calling_ it that, because Jaster wasn’t outwardly hunting Death Watch and instead focusing on finding jobs for his people. They didn’t have generational wealth to fall back on. They had to make their own money, find their own way. Death Watch had interested benefactors, but Jaster had refused outsiders’ financial backing. Mandalorian problems were _Mandalorian problems,_ and he wasn’t going to indebt himself and his people to people with shady intentions who wanted to put a leash on them. But…

If Death Watch was doing what the rumors said they were doing, Jaster might not have a choice. They put aside money, and they could subsist off it for a while, but they also had to think about _survival._ The whole point of the Supercommando Codex was to keep their diaspora from tearing itself apart. Then again, Death Watch would probably never meet them on the battlefield. Not with purely honorable intentions. It was all tricks and cowardice with them, and entering a full-blown war with them might be nigh impossible simply due to how Death Watch operated. The most Jaster could do was figure out where the _ade_ they had kidnapped were and rescue them.

It was infuriating, how helpless he was in this situation. That was his son’s _sister_ in there, half starved and feral, and Jango was off somewhere, upset and hurting, and Jaster had no idea what to say to him or what to do in this situation. Yumu was holding down the fort and doing it admirably, but…

Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Death Watch. It was time for _aliit,_ and from the progress Yumu was clearly making with Arla, he needed to keep Shouta and her around for the time being. He needed him right now, he realized, and it was a strange ache that had him moving to slump against Shouta’s side and bury his face in his shoulder, a rare show of affection.

“This is a karking mess,” he muttered, and Shouta huffed out a laugh, but let him stay, easily holding him up. He must have been feeling affectionate too.

“Lucky for you, I was a teacher that specialized in working with traumatized teens. She’s twenty-one, so it’s close enough. I think I can help.”

It took Jaster a second to process that statement. Shouta was a… _what?_

“... Huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Shouta broods on a rooftop, and emotions are had.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aizawa finally has his long overdue breakdown. There's a lot of emotions in this chapter.

Shouta had not expected the idea of him having been a teacher to be so shocking. Part of him wanted to be offended, but it wasn't like he'd been especially….open about his past.

Scratch that, he’d been more closemouthed than he’d ever been since he started UA and met Hizashi and Oboro. Being ripped away from his entire support system had brought back his old coping mechanisms. It had helped in some ways, but had made him regress in others. He hadn’t quite realized how much he’d regressed until Yumu had remarked on it during those first few weeks, and hadn’t that been a bit of an unpleasant realization to come to.

It was something that had itched at him over the past couple years. Jaster was his closest friend in this galaxy, and one of the first ones he had allowed himself in his grief. He wasn't completely oblivious to the affection Jaster had for him, but after having shut himself off from even considering a relationship like that… Well, even with Yumu back, it had taken a bit to bite back the knee jerk reflex to reject it out of hand.

He’d lost his entire life, and with it, a potential romance with Hizashi. And that had burned nearly as much as the loss of Yumu, so he’d pushed away any and all possible romantic notions.

His friends would have been sad for him. Disappointed as well, but sad most of all, that he had gone back to being that angry, spiteful teenager who refused to get close to anyone.

Jaster’s friendship had probably saved his life. Had given him a touchstone to come back to in this galaxy, someone who had pulled him back from the edge more than once, literally as well as metaphorically. Nemuri, Hizashi and Oboro would have adored him for that alone, and it ached in a bittersweet way that he knew they would have approved of him.

Nemuri would have absolutely kicked his ass for making Jaster worry the way he had when he’d gone dark when Yumu had found him. There was a reason Maris reminded him of the woman. 

What he felt for Jaster was different than what he had felt for Hizashi. Different, but no less deep. With Hizashi though, Shouta hadn't had nearly as many secrets, if only because Hizashi had been present for many of them.

And that was the sticking point. Shouta knew so much more about Jaster and his life than Jaster knew about him, and the thought of trying to take their friendship further without reciprocating was… it felt wrong.

Of course, with the mess that was his discovery and capture of Jango's sister, those thoughts would have to be put on hold. He’d also have to have a full and honest discussion with Yumu about it, as it was not only his life he would be talking about. He’d be revealing her secrets as well.

But for now… he had a brainwashed and traumatized young adult to help, and her younger brother to console and teach, so that he could help as well. Jango’s involvement in her recovery would be crucial, but had to be carefully controlled. Yumu’s survival already proved that there were cracks in the brainwashing, and his genius of a daughter was already using that to her full advantage.

Bringing Jaster in would be both harder and easier than Jango. On the one hand, there was less emotional involvement, as they did not know each other personally. On the other hand, Arla had been programmed to go for Jaster’s head on sight, so that trigger would need to be disarmed before any progress could be made that way. 

It was a mess, but one that he was determined to see through to the end. For Jango, for Jaster, and, almost most of all, for Arla herself. She hadn’t deserved any of what had happened to her, and Shouta was going to help her get a life back. Where that started, though,  _ that _ was the question. He wasn’t a licensed therapist, only knew how to provide support in a treatment plan and work with a professional. Some of the medics knew how to manage medication, but that was different than someone who was educated with specifics in these sorts of things.

So here he was, sitting up late at night, on his datapad on the roof. They called them ‘mind healers’ in this galaxy, not therapists, and while he could appreciate the romanticism, he also thought it was a bit too mystical for his tastes. Finding one that specialized in traumatized child soldiers was a whole other ball game, and he was going down the list trying to figure out what they could  _ do _ without sending her away to a facility. Death Watch would want her back, and she was safer here, on Concord Dawn, with the protection of the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _ There was the  _ additional _ problem that she was probably wanted somewhere, and likely had a prison sentence waiting for her at least in Republic space, which complicated just about everything.

He’d been at it for hours. A therapist that could relocate, maybe even someone  _ on _ Concord Dawn. And then there was the question of how they would  _ pay _ for it. There were no therapists on Concord Dawn, since it was a colony, with a fairly low population, and he wanted someone with experience in respecting warrior cultures, with bonus points for Mandalorian culture. The options were just so  _ vast. _ Trillions in the galaxy, with problems specific  _ to _ the kind of chaos that thrived in this universe, and Shouta was getting worn out. It was nearly midnight, and he was starting to flag. How had he ever handled the night shift and working at a school?

Coffee. That was it. Lots of fucking coffee.  _ Stars, _ he missed real coffee. His mind was now drifting back to the seven shot Death Frappe he used to have… caramel and espresso and espresso grinds and just a smidge of mocha, all blended up in a tall cup and  _ stars, _ he needed to not be thinking about that right now. The jelly pouches and Hizashi’s homemade ramen and…

There was a roar of a jetpack behind him, and he tensed minutely as boots hit the side of the roof and strode towards him.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Jaster asked, and Shouta stared down at the datapad with bleary eyes.

“It’s not that late.”

“It  _ is _ that late,” Jaster shot back, and dropped down in a clang of beskar next to him. “Cold, too. What are you doing?”

“Research,” Shouta muttered, and Jaster looked over at the list on his datapad.

“Mind healers?” He asked, and Shouta’s shoulders slumped.

“I always worked in a support capacity,” he replied, and Jaster hummed, pressed a little closer to him. Cold beskar dug into his shoulder, but Jaster’s side was warm, and Shouta, for a moment, felt a little like his old self. Having conversations on rooftops in the middle of the night before he got back to the daily grind. “And the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ probably need a mind healer, anyways.”

Jaster hummed, reached over to scroll through the options.

“Have you messaged Dexter? He always knows someone.”

“Dex is expensive,” Shouta muttered, because that damned Besalisk was a  _ fiend. _ Well worth the price, but…

“Have him forward me the payment details. You’re right. We  _ do _ need a mind healer on site,” Jaster replied. “For more than Arla.”

Shouta sighed and pulled up his comm to type out a quick message and send it. He had no idea where the weapons and information dealer was, so he may not reply for a hot minute, but if anyone  _ knew _ someone, it was going to be him. Mandalorian or warrior culture preferred, willing to relocate and live on site, able to prescribe medication, because for whatever reason mind healers were psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists all rolled in one, and sometimes social workers to boot, with an open schedule and willingness to drop all their current clients.

“What’ll the pay be?” He asked, exhausted and worn out after a fifteen day hunt.

“Negotiable, with room and board and protection included. Depending on the nature, we can also provide support for studies and papers,” Jaster replied, and Shouta softened a little. So he wanted to appeal to an academic. That would at least get  _ someone _ interested. Shouta added the extra and sent off the message before going back to what he was doing.

“... So teenagers, huh?” Jaster asked, and Shouta screwed up his nose.

“Yes,” he replied, that old caginess and grief rising up before he furiously beat it back down. “I was… something called a homeroom teacher. Supported all of the other teachers for specialized subjects, was in charge of my own specific class, carried them through three years before I let them off on their own. Culturally, I was considered the auxiliary parent.”

It was hard to talk about, even now. He liked what he did now, fit into it like a second skin, but it lacked that  _ purpose, _ that  _ spite _ that had kept him alive. He didn’t have to struggle in the same way, prove himself. He just  _ existed _ now, and it felt…

Like a hole in his chest, because it was never going to  _ truly _ be the same. The hardship had defined him in a way that the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ simply couldn’t. Because  _ everyone _ was accepted here. No one had to fight to be loved, to be cherished, to be accepted. As a teacher, he saw  _ so _ many students that had a tough home life that he just couldn’t  _ help, _ and without that…

He should be happy, that things were easier now, but all he was born and shaped out of was hard edges, and he could never be truly content being softened and shaped into something smooth that molded to a culture he hadn’t been raised in. There was a disconnect, a loss he couldn’t quite quantify. Yumu had gotten into embroidery, little woodworking, and he had caught her making omamori the other day. It had hit him in a way that made him choke on his breath, seeing her prick her finger and suck off the blood as she stared down at the fine silk in her grasp, and he’d wanted to cry in a way that wasn’t born out of happiness that she was there.

They were a little sloppy and uneven, but she was  _ trying _ to bring back that culture that only meant something to  _ them, _ and it hurt more than he could explain.

“They were worried about you making education modules,” Jaster said, interrupting Shouta’s mourning thoughts. “I thought you would be fine, personally.”

“It was an adjustment,” Shouta muttered. “She’s younger than what I went to school to teach for, and she… Well, some things are the same.”

He  _ was _ raising her to be a spacer, and she probably  _ was _ going to be a bounty hunter.

“I specialized in traumatized kids because… we had a specific career field,” he explained, halting and slow. “It was my other job. Fifteen to eighteen, they trained for it, like I did, and it was… more violent. Most of them trained their whole lives just to qualify for the official education.”

He’d crushed a lot of dreams, but heroics wasn’t everything. Before he started teaching at UA with Hizashi and Nemuri, there had been a  _ lot _ of kids that died in the middle of their internships and work studies. Oboro hadn’t been a fluke, didn’t exist in a vacuum. Almost every single class graduated with a minimum of one casualty, and most of them had more than one. Shouta had  _ never _ lost a kid. Not once. There were a lot shuffled into Gen Ed, a lot expelled flat out, but never  _ once _ had he had a kid die on his watch or be permanently maimed. So he couldn’t regret it.

“So Mandalorians have to be familiar to you,” Jaster said, and Shouta huffed in disbelief.

“Not at all,” he replied, and it was true. Mandalorians were unlike anything he had ever experienced. The boundless care, the  _ compassion, _ the camaraderie, it was unlike anything he had ever experienced. “We had a very… judgmental society. People were separated by biological differences. That wouldn’t fly with you. Kids… I’ve never met a Mandalorian raised kid that was cruel. Not in the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _ We started them young on their bigotry. Half of my work was undoing ingrained biases, and sometimes I still failed.”

They had just  _ accepted _ Yumu. He had feared she’d never have that, and there was a tiny, fragile,  _ hopeful _ part of him that thought that it wasn’t going to change when it came out what she  _ was. _

The first time she had an accident with him, he had laid there on the floor, a demon pressing down on his chest, making breathing impossible, and she had been sobbing and crying, too scared to touch him again to bring him out of it because she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t make it  _ worse. _ The demon was dripping saliva and blood on his face that he swore he could  _ feel, _ and some latent instinct had activated in him to  _ fear, _ but it had been trumped by his fear for  _ her. _ That she would regress, that he had made a mistake, that he wouldn’t handle it right even as he struggled to breathe with that heavy weight pinning him down, leaving him helpless and  _ exposed. _

He couldn’t get to her and protect her from her own demons, and he had hated every second of it. When the thirty minutes timed out, he had to pull her out of the cabinet with gentle words, coaxing her out into the open so he could make her hot cocoa and kiss the backs of her hands and wrap her up in every blanket in the house. He hadn’t known a damned thing about what to do. All he knew to do was hold her in his lap and rock her back and forth and  _ love _ her, love her with every bit that he had and…

How could he ever forget her? How could you  _ move on _ when you lost a child that  _ needed _ you in a way no one else could fill? His grief for losing her had been all-consuming, because he had a  _ duty _ to love her when no one else would, and he had failed.

Arla wasn’t a four year old. She wasn’t a child, a baby terrified of her own power, but she was going to remember what it was like to see Jaster and try to kill him on sight, and it was going to eat her alive. Shouta couldn’t fail her like he failed Yumu.

“Sounds like you were fighting a battle uphill and outnumbered," Jaster remarked, and Shouta came back to the present, and focused on the feel of Jaster leaning against him. It was quiet up here. He still missed climbing up somewhere high and breathing, missed the sprawl of Musutafu and the blare of cars and crime. Missed being  _ connected _ to a community and all of the anonymity that was being Eraserhead.

“I think I always liked it that way,” he said softly, a rare admission. “Having to struggle. I don’t have to… fight for people the way I used to have to fight for them. Not here. I think I…”

He loved the despair, in a way. It made the sweet moments that much more poignant. The accomplishment that much more  _ earned. _

“You know, I…” His voice cracked a little, and he leaned back away from Jaster, needing to stand on his own for a moment. “I can never go back, and I didn’t think… I never wanted to run  _ away. _ I wanted to fight, till my last breath, and now, all the fights are so much easier, so much simpler, and I don’t know what to do with that. It’s been eleven years and I still…”

He’ll never stop missing it.

“There was this shop I went to,” he babbled, because he couldn’t stop now that he had started. “It was a kind of soup from the region I was born and raised in. We called it ramen. Noodles in a meat broth, with a soft boiled egg and marinated, almost pickled shoots of this hard, chewy plant we called bamboo. Dried seaweed, it tasted different there, a thick slice of meat. It was a really cheap ramen shop, and I would go there after shifts that were particularly hard, just inhale everything in front of me and order a second bowl. They cooked it right in front of you, only separated by a counter you sat at, and I was good friends with the owner. It was warm and salty and the meat was called pork. They made these little dumplings that were half fried and steamed called potstickers, and I’d always bring some back for Yumu. I used to do my homework there, while I was in college. I… It’s a stupid thing to think about, but I didn’t… There was coffee, too. Not caf, but it was similar, and I practically lived off of it, working overtime and going to school and then juggling two jobs and a kid. There was this coffee shop that was… modeled after the coffee shops in other regions, and I would get this thing called Lone Ranger. Seven shots of espresso, which was a  _ terrible _ idea, but I was young and dumb and stupid enough to ignore the heart palpitations, blended with ice and caramel and chocolate and the grinds, coffee was a bean that you roasted dry and ground into a powder and strained water through and milk, I loved that thing, it was a sugary heart attack but it kept me awake.”

He couldn’t talk about Nemuri or Hizashi or Oboro, but he could talk about everything he missed, and missed desperately. It was the little things.

“There was this detective I used to work with a lot,” he continued, because he couldn’t  _ stop. _ “His name was Tsukauchi, and he always knew when someone was lying. He was steady. He used to give me such a  _ disappointed _ look when he rolled into work and I was still out on the streets, asked when I was planning on getting my homework done or if I was just going to sleep through my classes. Rent needed to be paid, that’s what I always said. He helped me a lot with the paperwork when I picked up Yumu. Even watched her at the station once or twice. My degree was already finished by then, or I wouldn’t have taken her in. It would have been irresponsible.”

Memories he had locked in a vault were pouring off against his will, and he couldn’t put up a dam, shore up his defenses, because he had put off mourning for eleven years, and now it was too much, all at once, and he couldn’t  _ breathe. _

“She wouldn’t touch me for the longest time. She was… scared. Four years old, barely not a toddler. I took her to four different preschools before I was satisfied with her teacher, Miss Saiko. She followed her around like a little duckling, clinging to these long skirts she wore, and Miss Saiko let her. She didn’t… the other kids were mean to her, but Miss Saiko did her best, but it’s an uphill struggle at that age when they don’t know how to question the parents you send them home to. It’s easier when they’re teenagers. They’re all ready to rebel, and in that world, the biggest rebellion you could do was kindness. I had hoped… things would be easier for her when she went to the school I taught at. But… she’s stubborn. Too kind for her own good. Loyal to a fault, I think."

She was  _ too damned loyal. _ Too fucking desperate, desperate enough to leave everything behind, all in the name of a father she struggled to remember at times. What kind of world had she been born into, what kind of world had she  _ endured, _ that simple kindness made such a wound? Drove her to  _ such lengths? _ Should he have been more cruel, if only for the sake of her still being able to go to shrines, eat ramen, have the  _ culture _ she had willingly given up so she could have that kindness again? For so long, he had thought himself a failure because he hadn’t been  _ enough, _ because he had  _ blinked, _ but now… Now, perhaps, he was a failure because he had been  _ too much. _

And that led to this next terrifying, terrifying thought.

"I love her, but she terrifies me sometimes. I don’t want her kindness to get her killed, but I don’t want the world to harden her. I want her to always be my little girl that tied omamori to my belt before I went to work and stood on her tiptoes to try to kiss my nose like I did before she went to bed, but… I’m scared she’s going to lose those little things that made our culture  _ our _ culture. The ramen shops. The Miss Saikos. The shrines. Paper lanterns and fat cats and the calligraphy and trains and the damned milk bread she loved so much and the cafes and history and tradition and the mountains and bright red shrines and the  _ damned _ anime and taking your shoes off before you entered a house and the schools without cooks and janitors because the kids were expected to learn and the clubs to join and sports and the fucking Sanrio amusement park and---”

There were too many words coming out of his mouth and it was inevitable that he tripped over them and choked, because he had never let himself  _ talk _ about what he lost, and Yumu had left  _ all of that behind _ just so she could be with  _ him, _ and what was he giving her? The vastness of space? A bunk in a cold ship? Making her own omamori? Planets and stars and aliens, when she had a  _ home _ she left behind, a  _ culture _ that was just  _ gone, _ never to be touched again, just a distant dream that was getting more and more faint. She was  _ alone _ out here, and she just had  _ him, _ and the  _ Haat Mando’ade, _ but Mandalorian wasn’t Japanese, was never going to be Japanese, and  _ yes, _ it had been her own stupid, stubborn choice, but he should have  _ been there _ to keep her from making it.

A heaving breath, and he  _ shook, _ because he was projecting on Yumu, but he had lost all of that, too. He’d failed as a father, but he had lost  _ everything. _ All of his hopes and dreams and ambitions, gone in a single moment, all because he  _ blinked. _ Every hero went out knowing that day may be their last, but this was…

It wasn’t the same.

“We can never go back,” he forced out, and his voice shook. “There’s no hope, no chance, no possibility where it can happen. It might as well have never existed, and I have tried to live with it, but she lost it, too, because I wasn’t there, and I can’t even put into words how…”

How big it all was. How just  _ impossible _ it was. How she loved him  _ so much _ that she couldn’t leave him on his own, how she refused to let him drown when she could pull him out, his  _ brilliant _ little girl who deserved  _ so much better _ than him.

A warm arm fell on his shoulders, and Jaster tugged him in, and Shouta couldn’t even mount a defense as Jaster crushed him against hard beskar, tangled his fingers in his hair as tears leaked out against his will. Shouta’s face was hidden away from the silent, judgmental stars that were too much to comprehend right now, and he let a ragged sob escape from his lips as Jaster pressed him in close and just  _ held him. _

“You don’t have to find the words,” Jaster whispered, and Shouta went boneless in his embrace as he just let himself  _ have this. _ “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

* * *

Jaster kept holding Shouta tight, kept grounding him, tried to help keep him together even as he let himself fall apart, like he hadn’t in probably eleven years.

This had been a long time coming.

Shouta cried without a sound, just small choked sobs escaping him, and Jaster wondered where he had learned to cry silently.

He probably didn’t want to know.

Jaster thought he understood a bit more why Shouta had never allowed himself to stay with the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ , with him, even when he’d gotten Yumu back. It hadn’t just been the people he left behind he’d been mourning, but an entire culture.

And that…. Jaster had been Mandalorian all his life. He had never not been Mandalorian, had always been secure in his identity as one. Becoming  _ Mand’alor _ had only deepened that certainty. What Shouta had lost… if Jaster had lost Mandalore, had lost his people, his armour, his family, every familiar place? Would there have been enough left of himself to go on living?

Jaster wasn’t sure, and the thought that Shouta had been left adrift like that was like a dagger to the chest. And with that, a thought came that made him go cold with terror.

Yumu making her way to Shouta had probably saved his life.

He clutched Shouta to him even harder, Shouta still crying against his armour. Shouta was one of the strongest people he had ever met, but constant grief could wear away even the most beskar of wills. He’d already had to drag Shouta out of hunts that had almost looked like suicide, and while he truly believed that Shouta had never actively tried to die, that didn’t mean Shouta had always wanted to live.

Yumu had brought the light back to Shouta’s eyes, put more life in his smiles, and brought Shouta back to him.

Now, it seemed Shouta felt safe enough to let his defences fall, and as awful as it was to see Shouta fall apart, Jaster had seen enough grieving people to know that healing could only come after the loss had been fully acknowledged.

Now, he needed to somehow get it into Shouta’s head that he didn’t have to lose himself to become Mandalorian. That there were other battles that he could fight, but this time, he didn’t have to do it alone. Shouta  _ needed _ a culture to call his own, that much was clear. He needed it  _ desperately, _ and Jaster needed to save him, because he couldn’t do it on his own.

Minutes went by, and Shouta slowly calmed. Jaster relaxed his grip minutely, but still held him close. When Shouta started to tense up, in preparation to pull away, to try and stand on his own again, Jaster spoke.

“I can’t understand the magnitude of what you and Yumu went through and I’m so fucking sorry that it happened to you. Neither of you deserved it. And I know that nothing can replace what you lost, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to have a home.” Shouta lifted his head, opened his mouth, probably to protest, but Jaster continued on.

“You deserve to have a home, where you feel safe, where you don’t have to fight every battle alone. I know that you can, but,” Jaster breathed shakily, and tried to will Shouta to understand. “You don’t have to stand alone. You don’t have to keep running away from us.” His breath caught, and Shouta was looking at him with wide, wet eyes, looking the most lost he’d ever seen him. 

“Jaster-”

“You do. I think I understand a bit more why, but… swearing the  _ Resol’nare _ , you’re not losing what you were. I’m not asking you to do that, or to change yourself. You’re Mandalorian in all but name already, Shouta, and I know it’s not the same as you once were, but… you can’t live like this.”

Careful hands were lifted to frame Shouta’s face, and Jaster reached to brush his tears away with his thumbs.

“I don’t want you to keep punishing yourself for something that was not your fault.”

Shouta was shaking now, and it felt like they were balancing on the edge of a cliff. One wrong word, and he could lose him. But if he said it right, maybe…

“I can’t give you back all the things you lost. That doesn’t mean you can’t bring some of your old home with you into a new life. Even if it’s just the little things.” He brushed some of that dark wild hair out of Shouta’s eyes, and everything was quiet as Shouta leaned ever so slightly into the touch. 

“There’s still a lot I haven’t told you. Things I should tell, that I need to tell you,” Shouta rasped, but he was still there, he hadn’t pulled away, and Jaster counted that as a victory.

“I know. And I trust that you’ll tell me when you’re ready. But I know you, Shou. I might not know everything about you, or even close to half, but I know you,” he replied, and the truth of his words rang in the night air. He didn’t need to know where Shouta was coming from, because he knew so deeply in his heart that he was  _ here, _ and Jaster wanted to be wherever he was going. Who you were didn’t matter. All that mattered was who you could become.

“You’re a fighter, through and through. You’re one of the most devoted and loving parents I’ve ever met. You’re loyal to the bone, and have a spine of beskar. You have saved my life, so many times, and that of my son. And you have always come back to me, even when you were trying to run away.”

Carefully, knowing Shouta knew what it meant, Jaster leaned forward to press his forehead to his, and shut his eyes. An echo between them, a memory of a warm forehead pressed to a shoulder, whispered words in a language Shouta never taught him, might never teach him.

“You always come back to me,” he whispered, and his breath skittered across Shouta’s lips, hot and longing. He wanted to lean in. He did. But Shouta wasn’t pulling away, and that was enough for now. “And I don’t know how to thank you for that except for being here when you do.”

Jaster opened his eyes, and Shouta was looking at him, almost shell-shocked, but still there. They were breathing the same air, and Jaster couldn’t look away. It may have been seconds, or hours that passed, but soon Jaster knew it was time to pull away. He had given Shouta more than enough to think about, and he hoped that it had gotten through to him.

So, he pulled away, and held Shouta by the shoulders when he looked like he was about to lean back into him. 

“Think about it,” Jaster said, and Shouta blinked, looking a bit dazed. It was enough for Jaster to almost regret pulling back, and-

“Mrrow!!” A familiar indignant growl caused Jaster to jump, just in time for a ginger menace of a tooka to jump in between them, and hiss and swat a paw full of claws at Jaster. On instinct, Jaster scooted away, and Nuts turned and butted his head against Shouta’s chest. 

A moment of shocked silence fell, and then it was broken by Shouta’s cackles. One hand started stroking Nuts’s back, while the other was clapped over his mouth, failing to muffle the whooping sounds of Shouta’s mirth. 

“How did that monster even get up here?” Jaster muttered, but he couldn’t be too annoyed. Shouta was laughing, rocking back and forth while he tried to stay upright to avoid dislodging the now purring tooka. Everytime he tried to stop, a fresh peel of laughter would erupt. It was very reminiscent of Jaster’s first meeting with the damned tooka, and reluctantly, he let out an amused huff. 

It was probably for the best. Now at least, even though Shouta’s eyes were still red from the crying and the exhaustion, there was life and love in that face. 

Jaster was happy with that.

“I think it’s time to sleep Shouta. Dex will get back to us when he does.” He stood, and extended a hand. A moment, two, and then Shouta grasped his hand with his free one, and let Jaster pull him up.

“Alright.” And with that, Jaster felt things fall back into place, more secure than ever.

  
He knew that this wouldn’t be the end of Shouta’s grief. It was likely there to stay, but Jaster thought that maybe, Shouta could finally heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, we didn't intend for this chapter to be updated on Valentine's day, but it's nice when things work out like that! Next up: The kids notice their parents acting weird, and Arla gets some screentime.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kids notice something's up, and we get to hear from Arla. Keep in mind that Arla has been brainwashed and tortured by Death Watch, and thus is not mentally healthy right now.

“Were they always like that?” Jango asked, and Yumu followed his squinting gaze to their respective dads at the other end of the training salles. Dad had Jaster on his ass, and he was  _ firmly _ seated on his lap, and Jaster wasn’t even fighting the pin. It looked more like he was waiting for it to time out.

“I don’t think so,” she replied dubiously, even though she kind of wished they would absolutely never be like that again.

“Should we say something…?”

“Do  _ you _ want to say something? Because I don’t,” Yumu replied, and Jango blinked.

“You’re right. Is it just me or has  _ buir _ been… touching him more?”

“... I think so?” Every time Yumu looked over, Jaster had his hand on Dad’s shoulder, on the middle of his back, once on his hip for a brief second as he slipped past him. On a rare occasion, she’d caught her dad  _ leaning _ into it, and it was…

Well, it was  _ exactly _ what she had wanted, but it was different when they had to  _ see it. _

“... Hasn’t it been ten seconds?” Jango asked, and Yumu crinkled up her nose.

“I’m trying very hard not to count.”

“It’s  _ definitely _ been ten seconds.”

“... Should we call them gross or activate dad-stincts?”

“It’s buir rage, but carry on.”

Yumu slid off the crate and grabbed Jango’s hand, dragging him out to the field, and they  _ still _ didn’t twitch. Well. Time to turn it up a notch.

“I bet you ten credits I can dodge your flamethrower at a half-meter distance!” Yumu said, probably too loudly, and in a  _ second _ two heads swiveled over to lock their gazes on target.

“Jango, don’t you  _ dare _ let her goad you!” Jaster shouted and Dad came to his feet in a split second. “You will  _ both _ be scrubbing the ships!”

“She started it, not me!” Jango protested, and shot Yumu a betrayed look, because he always got in trouble first. No one said there weren’t perks in being the youngest.

“You two shouldn’t even be out here; it’s time for Arla’s midmeal,” Jaster said as he strode across the salles. “We’re keeping to a schedule, remember?”

“I just got out here!” Jango protested, and Yumu frowned at him.

“And you can be here  _ after _ midmeal. You haven’t eaten since before dawn. Go eat,” Dad cut in, and now they were being ganged up on.

“Arla wanted us to record a spar, though, and we just barely finished our lessons!” Jango complained, and Dad’s eye twitched.

“Then you can spend lastmeal with her and show her  _ then. _ We’re leaving early tomorrow and might not be back for a full week. She’s going to be stuck with Maris and the guards.”

Arla had been moved into her own locked room after successfully managing to not take Jaster’s head off for a full thirty minutes, and Jango and Yumu were visiting her religiously while Dad and Jaster searched for a mind healer who could give her more targeted attention. Apparently, finding one with their  _ exact _ specifications in such a big galaxy was more complicated than they thought, but Dexter Jettster, their normal weapons dealer, had dug up a lead for a mind healer that didn’t have a practice and hadn’t apparently used his degree in a formal capacity in quite some time. He was an escaped Nightbrother that had been picked up as a Foundling when he was a teenager, but he was currently out of contact, and Dad had spent a full week tracking down his whereabouts. He was in Hutt Space, and apparently had an  _ impressive _ bounty on his head for ‘stealing Gardulla’s property’, which meant he had apparently sparked three separate revolts and had been spending the last five years running stings on their transport vessels. He was in a neutral clan, the Vraus, a small clan that hadn’t pledged to the  _ Haat Mando’ade, _ Death Watch, or allied themselves with the New Mandalorians, probably because they had their own priorities. Apparently, there was not a Vraus alive that hadn’t pissed off a slaver, and over seventy percent of their clan were former slaves picked up as Foundlings.

He was  _ actually _ perfect, but they had to convince him to actually  _ come _ with the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _ After they made contact. Jaster had plans to dangle a carrot in the shape of allowing the Vraus to spearhead stings on slaves collected and sold by Death Watch to get them to pledge so they could get their hands on Raze, with dedicated resources set aside to their slave freeing operations. Apparently, the Hutts had extended an offer for guarding their mining operations, and Jaster wanted to make a statement about the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ priorities.

Yumu was very much on board with this statement. While Dad had done his best to keep her away from anything that smacked of slavery, there had been a few times the reality of working in the Outer Rim had made itself known. And it enraged her that such practices ran rampant. She knew her Dad didn’t feel any better about it, and interfered where he could, but he was just one person. So, Jaster deciding to focus more on dismantling such things, well, Yumu definitely approved of it.

What she wasn’t happy about was leaving Arla for the week, but she needed more help than they could give her. And Yumu was not going to be left behind, not while Dad and Jaster and Jango were going. Even if she was just going to be stuck in baby jail on the ship as the getaway driver.

Not that being the getaway driver wasn’t important, because it was. She’d saved her dad’s ass more than a few times doing it, and Dad had always told her that it was important.

It just so happened to also be the safest job for a kid who hadn’t completed their training, and was still not considered of age. At this point, Yumu wanted Dad to swear the  _ Resol’nare _ just so that she could do her  _ verd'goten _ , and then she could say she was of age. It wouldn’t stop people from seeing her as a kid, but it meant that she could start actually working in the field without Dad’s permission.

Not that she wanted to do it without Dad’s blessing, but it was the principle of it all. Jango had been leading squads since he was fourteen, was about to start leading missions by himself, and he was only a few years older than her. Sure, she was twelve, and Jaster hadn’t even let Jango see combat at twelve, but Jango’s head was full of rocks and Yumu had  _ sense. _

“Fine.” Jango capitulated with a huff, but obeyed. Yumu followed, but just before she left the salle, looked back over her shoulder. Her dad and Jaster were standing shoulder to shoulder, just looking at each other, some kind of silent communication going back and forth between them. There was a hint of a smile on her dad’s face, and a more obvious one on Jaster’s, and she snorted and left before they came back to reality.

Whatever had changed between them, Yumu thought it was probably for the better. She just hoped they wouldn’t be too gooey in front of her. There was a limit to what she would endure, even for her dad.

* * *

The girl, Yumemu, the girl she had been told to kill, she still confused Arla. She had shot at her, had missed and failed her mission, but… she shouldn’t have missed. She had deliberately missed, and that made her head hurt, but the thought of actually shooting to kill a Human so small had hurt worse. So, she had missed, and had started a chain of events that had ended with her in the custody of the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ , the monsters who had killed her parents and kidnapped and brainwashed her brother, but…

Jango was there, alive, happy, and he was visiting her with Yumu, and Arla was so confused.

Nothing was making any sense. She wasn’t being tortured, she had been given everything she needed, even if she wasn’t set free, and nothing she did or said changed any of that. The guards still didn’t hit her, her meals were still brought on time, she was still given time and space to shower and take care of the necessities.

Nothing was adding up to what Death Watch had told her their enemies would do to her.

She didn’t know what to think. Were they lulling her into a false sense of security? Waiting for her to let her guard down, and then torture her?

What were they waiting for?

When her thoughts got too twisted and tangled and snarled, she just made herself go away, where everything was blessedly numb, and she didn’t have to deal with it.

Yumu’s ceaseless babbling and chattering helped. Arla didn’t always listen, but having that thread of conversation outside of her head helped to keep some things straight.

So, she started to look forward to seeing the girl. And she brought Jango, and that hurt, but in a less bad way than hurt normally felt like.

She had to go away in her head after those visits though, because it kept confusing her, that they let Jango see her, and he didn’t hate her, and didn’t seem brainwashed.

Someone was lying. Someone was lying, and it was too much to deal with.

Sometimes, Yumemu… Yumu, not Yumemu, she didn’t seem to like Yumemu, sometimes, but sometimes she brought her  _ buir, _ and that made Arla twitch. He was gruff, and silent, and Arla knew a predator when she saw one. Yumu was too soft, too young and naive, but Shouta, that was his name, was someone that knew how to kill and walk away from it without a shred of regret. He was  _ dangerous, _ but never seemed to be dangerous to  _ Arla, _ even though she had nearly taken off Yumu’s head.

Or had she?

She didn’t remember.

The briefing had said he was dangerous, showed her the bodies of her fellow  _ verde _ he had left on Death Watch’s doorstep. The briefing  _ also _ said he was  _ Jaster Mereel’s _ intended, and a disgrace, because he had been around for eleven years and never even put on a shred of armor. No one knew where he was from or what he had been before. He was a ghost. Neither he nor Yumu had a home planet, and no one recognized his fighting style. She had watched the videos, watched how he manipulated that strange scarf like he was a  _ jetii _ or something and threw people twice his size into the ground with brute force and power. She  _ knew _ he could snap her neck with a twist of cloth, but he…

Was quiet. Patient. Didn’t snap at her, when people snapped at her all the time, didn’t hiss or threaten. He just sat there, monitored, shared food with her. She was allowed to leave the room she had been put in with him, get some sunlight, walk around deserted courtyards. When it all got to be too much and she broke everything in her room, he showed up later and quietly helped her put everything back together. When she snapped and attacked him, even though she didn’t  _ really _ want to, he quietly put her down and disarmed her and waited with her until she relaxed and calmed down.

His presence was so different from Yumu’s, and she found herself confused that he wasn’t molding her in his image. That was the point of a child. A legacy. But Yumu was nothing like him. The only thing they had in common was that unnerving way of reading her and anticipating a meltdown, and that quiet, steadfast patience. Which may… not be a bad thing to learn from a  _ buir. _

Arla could scarcely recall hers and Jango’s.

Jango seemed to like them. He was going to be coming soon, with food Yumu made for her. Arla was counting down the minutes. Jango and Yumu were almost on time, and they had promised a holovid of them training today. She hoped she got it now. Even  _ if _ Jango was brainwashed, he should be strong, should take advantage of whatever he could get. Arla didn’t always like being with Death Watch, but she took advantage of what they had to teach her. Jango should be smart about the opportunity.

The door opened, and Arla’s eyes snapped up as Yumu and Jango stepped in, trays of food in their hands.

“Two minutes early,” she said reproachfully, because being on time also meant not being early. Early got you caught.

“Sorry, Arla,” Jango said easily as he set the trays down on the table. “We gotta talk to you.”

Arla slid down to sit at the low table, her fingers already itching to reach for the spicy food on the tray. Yumu sat down, and Arla ran her fingers over each spork to investigate before deciding they were appropriate to use after a delicate sniff to check if they were poisoned. Each dish was sniffed and examined for discoloration, and she dashed her pinky through each to check to make sure the taste was right. There were a lot of tasteless poisons, but the vast majority were fast acting, and Jango wasn’t supposed to be killed. Only the man that he called  _ buir. _

“Safe?” Jango asked, and Arla paused, smacking her lips to make sure there was no telltale tingling outside of the spice.

“Yes,” she decided firmly and reached to start doling out their bowls. Their portions were equally distributed according to the appetites she memorized in three days, and then she sat back with her food, watching them quietly in anticipation for them to start eating.

Jango and Yumu started digging in, and Arla proceeded to eat the hot, spicy stew ladled over rice. It wasn’t Mandalorian. Something Yumu made, with sausage and a strange, thick flavor profile. She called it ‘jambalaya’, or something like that. Arla wasn’t sure what it really was, but it was good.

“So, Arla, we’re going to be leaving on a hunt for about a week, maybe more,” Yumu hedged out, and Arla’s eyes zeroed in on the unpainted vambraces on her arms.

“You don’t have enough armor,” she said firmly.

Yumu paused, looking a little startled.

“I’m saying we won’t see you for five days, maybe more.”

“That’s fine,” Arla said, because then she could plan for them not coming on time for meals. “You don’t have enough armor. When are you getting your kar’ta beskar?”

“Dad hasn’t sworn the  _ Resol’nare, _ ” Yumu replied, and Arla blinked.

“So?” Yumu clearly had run of the full compound, and had been adopted by Jaster Mereel’s named heir. She thought that was how the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ ran things.

“It would be rude,” Yumu said firmly, and Arla frowned.

“Aren’t you Mereel’s  _ ad, _ too?” She asked in confusion, and Jango and Yumu exchanged amused glances.

“Not yet,” Yumu replied. “And I’m always going to be Dad’s first, anyways. We’re just… figuring things out right now. There’s a lot we have to work through before we… go full Mandalorian.”

Arla wasn’t happy with that reply, not at all, but she wasn’t sure what kind of unhappy it was. It pricked at her, and she twitched despite herself. The spork was tempting, but…

No. She could…

She  _ could… _

What did she want to do again?

“What hunt will you do?” She asked, because it was easier to drift, and Yumu and Jango exchanged glances again.

“We’re looking for the Vraus clan,” Jango replied. “We need one of them. You might see more of him. He’s a doctor.  _ If _ we manage to find him.”

“I’m not sick,” Arla said, affronted, and Jango crinkled up his nose.

“He’s going to be for all of us. If Vraus pledges themselves to the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _ ”

“Vraus are proud and stubborn,” Arla said, because they  _ were. _ That white armor stuck out like a sore thumb, and no one should be touching with a ten foot pole. They were practically feral. They even had their own fighting style. The entire clan was practically its own insular sub culture of Mandalorian, and most of Death Watch didn’t even  _ consider _ them Mandalorian. Too many Foundlings. Almost entirely Foundlings, actually. You could scarcely even trace them  _ back _ to Mandalore, with how muddied everything got.

“... You know about Clan Vraus?” Jango asked, and Arla twitched, because she had  _ seen _ that white armor. There was a raid, and things were… hazy. She didn’t remember. It was years ago.

“They are best left alone,” she muttered. There was a raid? Maybe… No, it wasn’t on  _ Death Watch. _ She was… somewhere. There were cages…?

“They’re feral,” she said, because she  _ knew _ that. “They don’t care for  _ structure. _ Your  _ Jaster _ won’t be able to talk them down.”

“We actually want to talk them up,” Jango said mildly, and Arla blinked.

“Talk them up,” she repeated, because that sounded like a recipe for disaster. 

“Yeah!” Yumu chirped, and there was a glint in her eyes that made the predator in Arla perk up and take notice. “They want to go after slavers, so we’ll just let them do that, just with more support. They get what they want, we get them to swear to Jaster, everyone wins.” 

“What clans do in their spare time, as long as it’s not against the  _ Resol’nare _ or the Codex, is up to them. It just so happens that  _ buir _ is perfectly fine to assist them in their favourite pastime, as long as he gets their support,” Jango added, and his grin had that same feral quantity that Yumu had in her eyes. 

Arla wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she stayed quiet. Death Watch didn’t work like that, she was pretty sure. 

What did it mean, that their enemies seemed fine with letting their supporters run wild? That they didn’t keep them on short leashes, like she was. 

She kept eating. Food was easier to focus on, and Yumu and Jango started talking about other things, and she let herself float on that. All she was required to do was eat, and stay calm, and she didn’t have to answer, because Yumu and Jango could just talk to each other. 

It would be a quiet week without them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: We get to meet some Vraus Mandos, and an unexpected character appears!


	15. Chapter 15

Raze Vraus was someone that moved with the punches. He  _ was, _ but this was a bit much, even for him, because one second he was blasting his way through a warehouse packed to the gills with  _ ade _ who had been forcibly separated from their parents and sold off to the highest bidder, and then out of fucking  _ nowhere, _ there were two Mandos, one with  _ extremely _ familiar black armor, and the  _ Red Devil, _ who even  _ Raze _ had heard rumors about as being possibly the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, and they were communicating with what sounded like a  _ kid _ on the comms, who was guiding them through the warehouse, and everything had gotten out of control  _ so _ fast. He had heard the rumors that the Red Devil and the fucking  _ Mand’alor _ were good friends, possibly betrothed, but none of that explained why they were  _ here, _ invading  _ his _ raid and providing the backup he and his squad  _ had _ needed, but…

What was going on??

The Red Devil landed next to him as he lifted his rifle to blast a slaver in the chest, and the powerful muscles under that baggy jumpsuit flexed as he spun on his heel, hooking a knee over a Trandoshan’s neck without a single shred of fear of that gnashing maw, bringing him down as the scarf wrapped around his muzzle to lash those teeth shut. There was a twist, and the neck  _ snapped, _ and the bounty hunter rose to his feet. He still hadn’t drawn the blaster at the small of his back, and Raze swapped to external comms.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the assist, but what is the goddamn  _ Mand’alor _ doing invading a Vraus raid?” He asked in irritation, and the man glanced at him, wisps of dark hair falling out of his braid.

He was weirdly pretty. Vraus hadn’t seen many Humans with eyes like that. What was it called, monolids? If the rumors were true, the  _ Mand’alor _ had good taste. Those cheekbones were probably illegal in seven sectors.

“We need you,” the  _ beroya _ replied, and lashed out with his scarf, wrapping the end around a pipe and vaulting himself up with little care for his personal wellbeing as he soared through the air. Both feet drove into the chest of a Weequay, and there was a  _ crunch _ of snapping bones, and he fell forward in a roll, spinning on one knee as he lashed out a second time to wrap the ends of his scarf around the Weequay’s throat and throw him six feet to smash into a cage.

With a whisper of cloth, he was gone, leaving Raze wildly confused, because they needed  _ him? _ What?

“Sorry, is the  _ Mand’alor _ looking for you?” Enfys asked from her sniper nest on top of the opposing building, and Raze made a helpless noise in the back of his throat.

“I guess?” He had no idea what was going on.

“It looks like they’re all wrapped up, by the wall. Start springing the  _ ade. _ What the hell did you do to get the attention of the karking  _ Mand’alor? _ ”

“I have no idea,” he confessed, because he couldn’t  _ place _ anything that would warrant this targeted attention. Sure, he was pretty high up in the House Vraus hierarchy, but that was hardly the sort of thing that  _ normally _ got him attention from the  _ Haat Mando’ade. _ None of the large factions bothered with Vraus. They were too ‘feral’, or whatever. Excuse  _ them _ for having a fucking moral code and minding their business. But since when did the  _ Mand’alor _ take time out of his busy schedule to jump in on a raid like this? Raze rarely paid attention to the insanity going on with the rest of the Mandalorians, but that didn’t seem like something  _ any _ of them did.

There was a roar of a jetpack next to him, and the  _ karking Mand’alor _ set down next to him, holstering his blasters.

“Jango just gave me the all clear,” he said and extended a hand. “Jaster Mereel. You’re a hard man to find, Raze Vraus.”

Raze eyed the offered hand with trepidation before grasping his forearm.

“I try to be,” he said, suspicion lurking in the recesses of his mind.

“I’m hoping to make you easy to find,” the  _ Mand’alor _ replied and took off his helmet.

Raze had never seen a holo of Jaster Mereel without a helmet, but that was  _ definitely _ a Concordian. Dark tanned skin, a large nose, soft brown eyes and curling dark hair in need of a cut. With a pause, he took off his own helmet, revealing his burnt orange skin with all of its brown markings designating him as being a Nightbrother, once upon a time, and Jaster looked him up and down, cataloguing his face and seemingly checking him for injuries on instinct.

“Graduated from the Alderaanian Institute of Medicine?” He asked, and Raze’s brain descended into distant fuzz as soft boot steps came up on the two of them, the Red Devil,  _ what _ was his real name, Raze couldn’t remember, pulling abreast of them to murmur something in the  _ Mand’alor’s _ ear, a casual hand brushing his side.

Oh.

The rumors were true.

“Yes,” Raze replied cagily. He didn’t have a  _ practice. _ His degree was used for helping the Foundlings they folded into the house if they didn’t have a home to go back to. Officially, he was the mind healer of House Vraus, but that didn’t require a practice. They uprooted themselves too often to have an actual mind healer for the kids to see. It was a nomadic existence, bouncing between different home worlds, staying for a year or two before they were on the move again before the Hutts caught wind of their current location.

“Great. I’d  _ love _ to talk to Rezzelda, if you could organize a meeting, about your House and the clans under it, but I have more interest in working with you directly. If you could join us on the  _ Musō-ka, _ I have caf and liquor and food to talk details,” Jaster said, and Raze blinked rapidly.

“... You want to fold House Vraus into the  _ Haat Mando’ade? _ ” He clarified, because everyone knew House Vraus had a long history of contention with authority, and that sounded like a recipe for disaster. They  _ didn’t _ take to being told when and how they could go on raids. They barely listened to Rezzelda, and hadn’t even set foot in the Mandalore Sector for more than a few days at a time in the past hundred years. Raze was one of the more calmer members of the house, mostly out of necessity, but the rest of them? They’d hear about the  _ Haat Mando’ade _ wanting them to swear their loyalty and take them out back for target practice.

“We’re in need of an on-site mind healer, and have evidence that Death Watch is torturing  _ ade, _ ” Jaster said with distaste, and every muscle in Raze’s body coiled at the sheer  _ derision _ in his tone. “And the Hutts seem to think we’re willing to work with them, so we’re in need of yours and your house’s services.”

Raze blinked again as his brain worked over that. His brows furrowed, and he slowly tilted his head.

“The Hutts offered you work, so you want to have… House Vraus swear to you instead?”

“I wouldn’t be bothering your house otherwise. I know you like neutrality,” Jaster said, and Raze struggled to wrap his head around this. There were a lot of things happening at once.

“And you need me specifically because you’re wanting to raid Death Watch and want to… help the  _ ade? _ ”

“It’s very difficult to find a mind healer that fits the bill for what we need,” Jaster said grimly, and Raze realized they had done  _ research. _ Didn’t just go picking mind healers willy-nilly, and that was… more endearing than it probably should have been. It was actually  _ screaming _ of  _ mandokarla _ that they were willing to go spring a bunch of child slaves and end centuries of disconnect with an exiled house just to get a single mind healer they had decided on. And they hadn’t sent just  _ anyone. _ They sent the  _ Mand’alor _ himself, and his fucking  _ intended, _ and wow. Raze was almost flattered.

“... Let’s get these  _ ade _ out and ready for extraction, and then we can talk,” he said faintly. “I’ll join you on your ship.”

He was going to need a drink for this. Or two. This was  _ so much. _ His bavodu’e was going to lose her mind.

“Of course,” Mereel said, and tilted his head back. “Ay, Jango, don’t  _ scare them! _ ”

“I’m  _ not! _ Can we get Yumu down here already?” A young, modulated voice called back, and the other Mando Mereel had brought stomped around the corner. Well, as best as he could, with two little ones clinging to his legs. “Yumu’s better with  _ ade. _ ”

“I think you’re doing just fine,” Mereel drawled as the two Twi’leks turned adoring eyes on ‘Jango’.

Jango… Jango…  _ Jango Fett? _

He brought his karking heir and intended for backup and  _ no one else? _ How important  _ was _ Vraus to the  _ Haat Mando’ade? _ Since when had they become a house that deserved so much targeted attention? Raze needed a nap.

Even so, there was still a job to do. Brot was on extraction, so Raze just had to direct the little ones to him. There were only about twenty this time around, more than enough to deal with. No adults this time around, just the little ones, all from exotic or rare species. Twi’leks, Duros, a few Lasat pups,  _ definitely _ needed to get them home before their people came to rip Vraus arms off, a few Iego little ones, they needed to get the  _ hell home too, _ dear  _ ka’ra, _ a Wookie, and…

It had been ten minutes since he started springing the  _ ade _ and directed them to Brot, when he came across a cage shoved in the far back, bearing only one tiny occupant. Raze hesitated at dark eyes peering at him in the gloom, cataloging all of his weaknesses, and realized this was a species he had never seen before. Humanoid body, indistinguishable from a Human, but the head… was avian? Black feathers and a yellow beak, intelligent dark eyes following his movements like he was a threat.

“... Do you speak Basic?” Raze asked hesitantly, and the kid just stared at him as he knelt in front of the dirty cage that was just a  _ tad _ too small for him. No response. “... Huttese?”

Huttese was always a safe bet, but the kid just kept staring at him silently. He was dressed in threadbare slave clothes, and looked like he needed a real water shower. There were bruises on his wrists, and he could see through the gloom that his left ankle was swollen and twisted. So, a fighter. Good to know.

Carefully telegraphing his movements, he broke the lock, and the kid didn’t even flinch at the loud noise. But his eyes  _ did _ dart between Raze and the narrow exit, like he was trying to figure out if he could make a dash for it. Raze backed up obligingly, used to kids he didn’t have a common tongue with, and offered a hand.

“I’m here to help,” he said slowly, and the kid didn’t move. He just stared at the hand before looking back up, his eyes narrowing slightly. Raze beckoned again with his hand, and the kid stubbornly stayed put.

“C’mon,” he coaxed, and slowly reached towards the pouch on his hip for the Iridonian jerky he kept there. Forward facing eyes, so odds were he wasn’t a herbivore. “Are you hungry?”

The jerky was offered, and the kid’s eyes narrowed even more. He wasn’t an expert on avian expression, but that was borderline disbelieving. Like Raze was an idiot for thinking he could be bought with  _ food, _ but dammit he  _ did _ look scrawny.

There was a scuff of a boot behind him, and the kid’s head snapped up in shock as his eyes widened drastically.

_ “Eraserhead?” _ He gasped, and Raze turned to look back at the Red Devil standing there, looking like he had just been hit in the face. The expression cleared in a second, and then his eyes narrowed as he let off some rapid-fire words in a language Raze didn’t recognize and couldn’t catch. The kid’s mouth opened and shut, and then he replied in kind, and the Red Devil’s face twitched before he asked something, and the kid gave him an exasperated look before shooting something back. Red Devil let out a tiny noise of distress, and the conversation went on back or forth for at least a minute before he turned back to Raze, who was feeling rapidly more and more lost.

“He’s from my home planet, and his name is Fumikage,” he said, like it was an  _ order. _ “I need to make sure a twelve year old isn’t about to crash my ship. Can you bring him back to the  _ Musō-ka  _ with you? You won’t be able to get a translation interface for our language, so it’d be best to keep him close, and we have a bone knitter on board that I can calibrate for hollow bones.”

Raze’s brain was whirling at the influx of information, but fuck it, he was rolling with it so far. With a nod, he turned his attention back to the  _ ad’ika _ and held out his arms before the Red Devil was stomping away again, barking instructions into the comm mounted on his wrist.

“C’mere,” he said again, and the kid eyed him warily before sliding forward with a grimace of pain. Two skinny arms reached for him, and Raze carefully gathered him against his chest, lifting him up with a hand put on the back of his head to keep him from smacking it on the bars. Two hands wrapped around his pauldrons, and Raze climbed to his feet with the tiny kid set on his hip. He weighed next to  _ nothing, _ fuck, Raze needed to feed him. The jerky was offered again, and the kid took it after a pause, sniffing delicately before biting down with trepidation.

… Why the fuck did he need teeth?

Actually, Raze wasn’t questioning shit anymore until it was explained. The way today was going, trying to figure it out by himself was only going to give him a headache. 

Or more of one, at least. 

Just what had he gotten himself and his house into?

* * *

Shouta was beginning to wonder if he should be expecting Nezu or Nemuri to pop up next, because this was getting a bit ridiculous. What was going on in their old dimension that this had happened again?! 

As soon as he came within sight of Jaster, the man immediately glued himself to his side and didn't leave. Shouta wondered what look he had on his face to get Jaster showing that much blatant concern. He wasn’t one for showing emotion, but he had a sixteen year old second year UA hero course student in the wrong parallel dimension, apparently deaged like he had been, poor kid, a whole host of problems in  _ this _ dimension to deal with, what with Arla and all, and the crushing weight of responsibility bearing down on him. Raze had been looking at the kid with that Mandalorian glint in his eye like he wanted to snatch him up and feed him nothing but good, homemade food for a solid week, so Shouta had backed out and given him space. He could deal with Fumikage on the _ Musō-ka,  _ and he needed to give Yumu a heads up.

Well, he  _ had _ given her a heads up, and she was currently in the cockpit, vibrating out of her skin with excitement at having another person to talk to in Japanese. The full weight of someone else being displaced hadn’t settled down on her yet, and he was hoping she didn’t have the full realization until they were back and safe on Concord Dawn.

Raze wasn’t here yet, instead working out the basics with his team of Vraus commandos of where they were going to go with the kids before they figured out who needed to go where and what family they had waiting for them. The Lasats were a top priority in getting  _ back _ to Lasan, so they were probably going to make a pit stop there and on Kashyyyk before they followed them to Concord Dawn, which should give Raze time to have word sent to his head of house about a possible meeting with Jaster.

Which left Shouta and Jaster here. Waiting for Raze to join them, seated in the rec room as Shouta checked Jaster for injuries. He’d sprained his wrist in the raid, and Shouta was slathering bacta on it and checking it for breaks.

“You’re getting too old for this shit,” Shouta muttered, and Jaster scoffed.

“I’m in my early thirties, Shou, that’s practically my prime. I'm only just starting to get back pains now.”

“Uhuh.” Shouta got his first back pains when he was twenty-one, but he wasn’t going to say as much. The Mandalorians were warriors, but even  _ their _ work ethic didn’t compare to a Japanese underground pro. Shouta had nearly got killed at  _ least _ four times a night on a regular basis.

“Something bothering you?” Jaster asked quietly, and Shouta twitched as he rubbed the bacta into his skin so he could put his glove back on.

“No,” he replied shortly, like a liar. “Nothing you need to worry about just  _ yet. _ ”

“So I should be worrying about it  _ now, _ ” Jaster surmised, and Shouta’s eye twitched. Of course Jaster wouldn’t let his deflection fly. He knew Shouta too well to fall for that. 

He should be annoyed by that. It was telling that he'd gotten used to it. 

“One of the kids was from our home planet,” he said, and his lips flicked downwards. “It’s… It’s going to get complicated, and we’re going to have to explain some things I’ve been putting off for awhile.”

Sentient quirk that had been unconscious since he’d been flung into this dimension was going to be a  _ pain _ to deal with, and Shouta really felt for the kid. Second year heroics student, had probably already seen combat, experiencing the vulnerability of a tiny body without a quirk that had likely been his constant companion for his entire life… Yeah, the kid was going to be a  _ wreck, _ and Shouta needed a firm plan of attack to help him out. Which meant being up front about  _ everything _ in the kid’s support circle. He could play off not revealing things about Yumu, because Yumu had been  _ his _ daughter before any of this happened, but this kid didn’t have  _ anything _ familiar, and his problems were a  _ whole _ other beast to tackle. A goddamn sentient  _ quirk. _ It wasn’t often that you ran into those, and they were always complex things, hard to quantify with a whole host of psychological issues that followed, just because kids were  _ cruel _ and parents weirded out and unsupportive, and he had been at  _ UA, _ at the top of his game, and now he was here.

Freed slave. In the body of a six year old. Intermittent amnesia because his quirk was knocked out and retained some of his memories for him. The one constant in his life that he shared a  _ body _ with in a coma, so close and so far. Nevermind the friends and support network he had been torn away from. Shouta at least had been an adult, and had kept a mostly adult body, and Yumu had been dropped pretty much right on top of him. 

This kid probably had the worst luck Shouta had ever seen and that was saying something. 

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Jaster said, cutting off Shouta from his spiraling thoughts, and he almost coughed out a laugh at the complete lack of awareness in that reply. It  _ was _ that bad, Shouta had been  _ lying _ to Jaster for literal years about what he was and why he could never return home. A lie by omission was still a lie, even if he'd tried to be truthful with everything else. 

“It’s terrible,” he said gruffly and got the bandage to wrap around his sprained wrist and brace it. “You may not even forgive me.”

“Shouta…” Jaster said warningly, and Shouta shut his eyes, rested his forehead on his cold pauldron as he tried to  _ think. _

“Please understand… talking about it was…”

Reaching into his chest and ripping out his heart. It was impossible. Sometimes even  _ looking _ at Yumu hurt, not that he would  _ ever _ admit it, ever give her a  _ moment _ to doubt how much he loved her and wanted her here. And now there was another lost kid he had to figure out how to make time for if Raze didn’t snatch him up from under his feet, figure out how to make a home  _ fit, _ when he stuck out even  _ more _ in this universe they had landed in. While juggling this tentative romance with Jaster and the whole mess with Arla and trying to figure out how to live up to Mandalorian ideals of what a  _ riduur _ should be for a fucking  _ king _ who he had never even  _ kissed. _ But Jaster always waited for him to come back, and Shouta…

They needed to have this conversation. Shouta had just thought he would have more time, and that was hilariously stupid of him, considering the fact that it had been  _ eleven fucking years. _ He’d had plenty of  _ time, _ he just…

Had to be honest with himself and recognize that he was only open to discussing  _ any _ of this because there were kids involved.

“Dad, your Zabrak is at the door,” Yumu said over comms, and Shouta sighed, hauled himself up to go deal with it.

“The kid needs medical attention. Jango, do you have the bone knitter recalibrated?”

“I’ve got it!” Jango called from the other room, and Shouta made a mental note to recheck his work before he locked Fumikage into it.

Jaster caught his wrist before he could take another step, and Shouta looked back, and met warm dark eyes. 

"I thought I made it clear, Shou. I don't know everything about you, but I know you. Remember that, alright?" Jaster murmured, and then pressed a ghost light kiss to Shouta's knuckles, letting go after. Some kind of sound, Shouta wasn't sure what, escaped his throat, and he whirled away, but not before he felt the heat in his cheeks, and heard the menace laugh.

Why did he have to fall for romantics who had no trouble flustering him? Why did he do that to himself?

He managed to regain his composure by the time he got to the entrance, and palmed the button to let Vraus and Fumikage in. The tall Zabrak was cradling the former Heroics student in his arms, and there went any chance of Fumikage not getting adopted by House Vraus. Which meant that Raze would likely have to be part of the explanation, which was going to be even more awkward.

Maybe he could just leave Raze with Fumikage while the kid got his ankle fixed, explain things to Jango and Jaster, and then let him in on the pertinent details? Yeah, that might work better, and make this whole thing more tolerable. 

“We’ve got the bone-knitter calibrated for Fumikage, so we can get started with fixing him up. Sound good?” Shouta stated, and Raze nodded. Shouta turned to Fumikage, who was watching him with sharp eyes. He looked about six, give or take a year, meaning he’d lost about the same amount of years Shouta had. His brain development was probably a hell of a mess, considering what he remembered from the child and teen psychology courses he’d taken way back when. 

_ “Raze will stay with you while your ankle is fixed. I need to explain Quirks to my friends, and then we’ll try to figure out what’s going on with your Quirk, alright?” _ Shouta explained to Fumikage, and the kid gave a sharp nod. Good, he was keeping his head, and letting Shouta take the lead, which made things easier. 

“Lead the way, uh-” Raze paused, and Shouta realized that he hadn’t introduced himself. 

Well, wouldn’t that give Yumu more ammunition in regards to his manners.

  
“Shouta Aizawa,” he offered, “Welcome to the  _ Musō-ka.”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And our favorite bird enters the scene! Next up, Jaster and Jango finally get some answers!


End file.
